Current Events in Fiction

One of my e-mail lists recently had a discussion about the wisdom of referring to the COVID-19 crisis in fictional works. One concern was that including the pandemic would "date" a story. That is, more so than all pieces of fiction are inherently dated merely because fashions and technology change. One author's editor asked her to remove the references for that reason. Personally, I don't plan to include the pandemic in my fiction, because all my stories contain supernatural or paranormal elements, and it seems that having the pandemic as part of the background would add an unnecessarily complicated extra layer. Also, setting a story in a version of the current real world, I think, would result in having the pandemic "take over" the story. If a work were explicitly set in the present year as it actually is, it would be almost impossible to keep the story from being at least partially "about" the pandemic. So, because of the genre of my writing, I've decided to keep locating my works-in-progress in an indefinite present where COVID-19 doesn't exist.

It will be a different matter when the acute crisis ends and the "new normal" (whatever that may turn out to be) becomes established. In that case, whatever social changes have become permanent should be included for verisimilitude, in my opinion. For instance, if in the future all store clerks continue to wear masks, that custom should be mentioned in passing when appropriate, just as we would show characters going through airport security lines. (Remember when friends and relatives of departing passengers could walk with them right up to the gate? Or am I the only person here who's that old?) Diane Duane subtly alludes to the September 11 attacks in a couple of her novels. In one of the Young Wizards installments, the teenage characters' mentor says they must have noticed how the world situation has deteriorated recently. The young heroine agrees, thinking of the Manhattan skyline. Her adult friend corrects her; he means within the past hundred years or so. In Duane's STEALING THE ELF KING'S ROSES, whose characters inhabit an alternate Earth, at one point the protagonist and an ally travel the multiverse through several versions of New York. In a world obviously meant to be ours, she asks, "Where's the World Trade Center?" Her companion hastily moves her along, suggesting that maybe it was never built in that continuum.

The TV series TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL featured two very effective episodes in reaction to 9-11, but alluding to the event in retrospect, months after the attacks. In one, a small community can't get past the loss of a favorite teacher who was visiting New York on the fateful day; the other takes place on New Year's Eve in an old-fashioned watch repair shop about to close forever, as the staff labors to repair a timepiece found in the ruins of the World Trade Center.

Another way of dealing with current events in fiction, as mentioned by a few authors on that e-mail list, is to write about a setting with analogies to the present crisis, yet not literally portraying those real events. For example, one might create an imaginary world suffering an epidemic with medical and social effects similar to those we're experiencing. An alternate-universe novel published several years ago portrays a world politically dominated by Muslim Arab states. In the recent past of that Earth, where Christianity is a minor sect, a November 11 attack on a major Middle Eastern landmark by Christian fundamentalist fanatics has shaped politics and culture.

Artistic works can allude to current events even more obliquely. I once got a surprised response when I labeled the country song "Beer for My Horses" a 9-11 song. No, it doesn't mention the attacks. But its theme of bringing frontier justice upon the bad guys, in the context of the time of its release, unmistakably calls to mind that event and the U.S. military response. How do you deal with real-world crises in your writing, if at all?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Headlines to Rip Stories From - Part 1

Headlines to Rip Stories From

Part 1 

OK, from which to rip stories! But who says that?

Since my house has been undergoing renovations, at the same time as I've had pneumonia, I have fallen behind creating these posts.

I do have plenty to say, and a number of topics to explore, but meanwhile, here are some articles that have captured my attention.

Here is a headline to "rip" if you need to make a Character mysteriously sick, or perhaps contrive a murder method.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/11/researchers-find-dangerous-fda-rejected-drug-in-supplements-by-reading-labels/

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Putting Violence In Its Place Part 2 - The Three Second Rule

Putting Violence In Its Place

Part 2

The Three Second Rule

The First Part of this series was written as a stand-alone post, not the kickoff of a series, but in 5 years or so, the Romance Genre field has changed -- a lot.  We need to revisit this topic in light of the #MeToo hashtag campaign.

So Part One is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/03/putting-violence-in-its-place.html

Violence has never mixed well with Romance.  Violence is Astrologically symbolized by Mars and Pluto.  Romance is a phenomenon of Neptune.

Astrology posts are indexed here:

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

Yet today's society is surfacing the subtext interaction between men and women in the workplace, where status and power are used to bully women into submitting to sexual advances that are not welcome.  And, bullying-back, women who did accept in the heat of the moment later claim to have been attacked #MeToo.

This new front of the war between the sexes was predicted in the political explosion of the 1950's (post WWII men coming home) and 1960's (a new generation of women wanting control of their own lives, reproductive and economic destiny).

Women should not "work" because a) it distracts men from their work, b) women should be home having and raising kids, c) women are too weak to "take the heat" in the "kitchen" of the all-male workplace d) men will then make half as much salary because "now" men are paid to "support a family" and their wives are considered "employed" by the husband's employer to see to his readiness to put in a hard day's work without coming home to chaos and household chores.  (honest, that was the argument!)

Solution: make it 50/50 workplace, with the rules of employment accommodating the working mother.  A couple of generations of women have fought for that equality, and hit the "glass ceiling," hard. Now splintered shards of that glass ceiling are falling on the women climbing behind those who first broke it.  And those splintered shards are drawing life-blood (#MeToo).

So the "rules" (social norms invented by each generation of teens, just as they invent language anew, feeling their experience of life is unique and never-before-experienced by any human) of dating, hooking up, living together without marriage, have been changed.  Sex not before the third date is no longer a rule for convincing a guy you are not promiscuous.  Now, sex on the first date is an option. 

When women were kept at home, sex before marriage would besmirch a reputation.  Now, put out or shut up, is the rule.  Here is a UK Cosmopolitan article about the THREE SECOND RULE.  The end of the article is the most pertinent part.

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/relationships/a21726445/consent-three-second-rule/

----quote----

"It makes women feel gorgeous"

So I asked Rick, “What if your date isn’t into it? Surely no means no, not go into Carol Vorderman mode and set the timer. "Well if they aren’t, you stop right away, no bones about it. But I find most of the women are. It makes them feel gorgeous if you show you can't hold yourself back because they’re so sexy."

I must admit, Rick’s justification also made me see him in a different light. The problem is that a lot of guys believe in the three second rule - it's not just the creeps, but people like Rick who seem perfectly nice, decent guys, the other 23 hours, 59 minutes and 57 seconds of the day. But, for those three seconds, they believe it’s acceptable to blur the lines.

Essentially, the three second rule is not about waiting for a woman to say yes, but waiting for her to say no - and that's where it becomes a grey area in terms of consent. If you haven’t had a chance to say no because a guy has stuck his tongue down your throat before you can get a word in edgeways, does that really constitute consent?



"IT'S A HORRIBLE REFLECTION OF THE UNDERSTANDING PEOPLE HAVE ABOUT CONSENT"

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

Is "three seconds" enough TIME for a woman to "consent" -- and is that consent irreversible?  Is crying "MeToo" a week or month later somehow dishonest or dishonorable?

Is the Three Second Rule a product of the War Between The Sexes brought into the workplace where, in a Man's World, the workplace is an arena of combat, survival of the fittest, and raw life-or-death competition where women are not welcome?

Does a sexual advance from a co-worker, subordinate or superior, constitute sexual harassment - before or after 3 seconds? 

Is personal body-contact an act of sexual violence?  Or is it romantic?

Do guys have a "right" to claim a woman consented because they use aggressive strength to penetrate defenses? 

What is the statute of limitations on #MeToo?  Should there be one, or is sexual aggression like murder, killing off something that can never be replaced, repaired, or healed?

Many very ROMANTIC scenes can be constructed around these questions -- where social "rules" come from (fevered teen imagination?), why they should be obeyed, and when they should be out-grown or modified?


Discussions between Male and Female Lead Characters in a Romance just can not be plausible if conducted in "On The Nose" dialogue -- where you say what you mean.

The discussions about the Three Second Rule and #MeToo have to be "off the nose" -- which means in SUBTEXT, behind the words that are said is a meaning the reader gleans without being told.  It is all implied, alluded to, and embedded in the context of the relationship's shared experiences.

TV drama does this off-the-nose dialogue by alluding to - say - a City where the two shared an experience before the Show (e.g. "I won't forget Paris.")

In a novel, or series of novels, you have to write "Paris" -- planting it, foreshadowing the allusion that will hammer the point about #MeToo and the Three Second Rule, so the reader reinterprets the events in Paris to understand whatever thematic point you are making about #MeToo.

The hole in the "rules" that our current society has to fill in is all about HOW a guy proves he was welcomed, not shunned.  What is proof?  It used to be a wedding ring and the publicly stated, "I do."  What is proof of welcome now?  Women can accuse, but how can Men refute? 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Worldbuilding From Reality - Part 5 Realistic Happily Ever After by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Worldbuilding From Reality
Part 5
Realistic Happily Ever After
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

The previous parts to Worldbuilding From Reality are here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/03/worldbuilding-from-reality-part-4.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/worldbuilding-from-reality-part-3.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/02/worldbuilding-from-reality-part-2.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/worldbuilding-from-reality.html

Reality is a tricky thing to define. Take any pair of humans and they will disagree on the "reality" of at least one broad topic of life.

Marry those two people to each other and they'll fight cats-n-dogs over that one issue, no matter how much fun they have making up afterwards.

Yet, ultimately, "reality" (whatever it is) is the substance from which fiction is woven.

A fiction writer must study "reality" as closely as any non-fiction writer, more closely than most journalists today.

A fiction writer doesn't need to "know the truth" to set her imagination free, and in fact "truth" probably won't help the WIP get finished.

But if you are a Romance Writer, you need to know what your readers feel is true.

Here is an article about the beliefs of successful people -- if you are writing for successful people, you should incorporate these beliefs into your Characters.  Note #1 on this list is READ.

http://www.businessinsider.com/beliefs-of-rich-people-2016-7

And here is the Source.

http://richhabits.net/rich-habits-study-background-on-methodology/

Knowing what your readers feel is true (as contrasted with what they think is true) is also vital for a science fiction romance novel writer.

What we feel is true does not always line up with what we think is true.

Men differ from women in the area of thinking about emotions.

Nailing that elusive difference on that one topic lets a writer depict a Character as male or female in a way that the reader will recognize without the Character being just another thin cardboard cutout cliche.  But it has to be "off the nose" -- see Save The Cat! If you articulate and delineate that difference, it won't seem "realistic" to many readers.

So today we have 3 separate topics to blend into one seamless artistic whole called a "world" we have "built" -- Realistic - Happiness - Ever-After.

That's a Love Triangle: the Practical Guy - the Idealistic Woman - the Visionary Guy.

One thing Romance genre readers have in common is a subliminal, sometimes elusive, feeling that there really exists a Happily Ever After lifestyle and state of being.

Readers feel that truth even if they have never, personally, observed a couple living a Happily Ever After life.

Why is it that we believe in the Happily Ever After, not as just fantasy but as reality, without ever seeing it with our own eyes?  Believing it is real and then failing to achieve the ideal state is a source of much larger than life, dramatic, angst Romance novels focus on.  "Get a different man, and everything will be fine!"  Is that true?  How could it not be true?

I've collected a few answers to that question that could be used as Story Springboards.

Here's Part 4 of Story Springboards:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-3-art-of.html

And here's an index to a few:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/index-post-to-art-and-craft-of-story.html

Remember, most often the Story Idea precedes the building of the world in which the story is a plausible (maybe inevitable) Event.

Not all writers (or not every project of any given writer) begin with Story or Character, but it is vastly common among the most prolific Romance writers.  Romance is about the Characters and how they Relate to each other.  Well, for that matter, so is "War" -- and that is another reason science fiction and romance genres are such a natural fit.

My collection of answers to the question of why WE believe in the HEA (while so many others just don't) includes examinations of fictional Worlds and their structures, the nature of Reality, the nature of Happiness, and perhaps most important the concept of "ever after."

We've been working on how to create a Romance between a Human and an Alien that is plausible to readers who disbelieve the HEA for some while.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-16.html

Previous parts of Theme-Worldbuilding Integration are indexed here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/index-to-theme-worldbuilding.html

We have discussed, under Theme-Symbolism Integration, why it is that we cry at weddings.

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

That entry has links to the two previous parts of that series on symbolism.

So we've been assembling the tools to discuss the vast schism in our real world between those who expect "life" to have a Happily Ever After and those who know for a fact that there is no such thing as an HEA.

Now we have to survey our everyday real world and the prevailing beliefs guiding thinking and the prevailing thinking shaping beliefs.

Remember the theory that in every Man there is a Hidden Woman, and in every Woman there is a Hidden Man.  In other words, both polarities are available to every human (might not be true of Aliens).

And remember the occult theory that Gender is a property of Soul -- Souls come in masculine and feminine, and as the Soul descends into the body in stages (from conception, through 12 or 13 years or so of growth) the Soul shapes the body.  These two theories of "what" a human is generate a vast number of themes and their attending conflicts, all pre-packaged to become perfect Romance Novels.

If the human social schisms were cleanly divided along gender lines, all women would be on one side of the HEA battle and all men on the other.  Since that is not the way it is, what is actually going on?

Why do some people believe that what they've never observed nevertheless exists, and some people believe that if they can't observe it, it does not exist.  Worse, that if they can't see it, then it is impossible.

We see humans divide themselves on every issue right along that idea of what is real and what is not  -- religion vs science, HEA vs HFN, Freedom of Speech vs Don't Offend Me, Freedom to Bear Arms vs. You Must Be Prevented From Attacking Me Because Of Course You Would If Armed.

How many have observed Science discarding settled scientific theories, yet believe the latest is the last, firm and absolutely true truth?  How many have observed Religions splitting, reforming, founding new branches?  How many have been the target of a madman/woman with a gun?   You may see it on YouTube or TV but how do you know its "real?"

YouTube videos that go viral are often professionally shot and edited, a secret that few know.  Also few know the secret that "demonstrators" who show up with signs and rotten tomatoes to "protest" something actually are recruited and paid for the job.

We do not live in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get world.

Just look at the Political Candidates who hire image consultants and speech writers, makeup artists, (Botox is making a fortune) and even a specialist to go buy clothing and get it altered to fit, to be worn only once.  The package presented for voters to choose does not resemble what's inside the package. You can't see what's inside the package, but you are supposed to "believe" it is what you want or prefer.  You are supposed to believe that the packaging is Reality because it is "realistic."

Note how Belief In The UnObserved appears as the rationalization for an attitude on both sides of the schism, the side that believes what can not be proven and the side that flatly refuses to believe anything is real if they have not observed it.  Any given individual human (not Alien) can be on different sides of this schism on different issues and not feel any lack of intellectual integrity.

One very important schism of the 21st Century is over whether what can't be observed is real.

For example Global Warming.  There are those who accept the numbers as observations and "settled science" and thus the phenomenon as Real (because science is never wrong), and those to whom numbers are way too easily concocted out of imagination, forged, or misinterpreted and so are not proof of Reality.

This is the schism that divides us on the issue of belief and knowledge.

One depiction of Reality attributes Knowledge to the Masculine and Belief to the Feminine.  So the schism besetting our National and International politics is the old Battle of the Sexes issue of "what is reality?"

"My feelings are Real!" vs "I know what I'm talking about!"

Do modern men today believe in the HEA as a real goal in life?

It's obvious from the burgeoning Romance field that a huge fraction of women do, and a lot of men as well.

So why doesn't everyone know (not believe but know) that "life" well lived leads to a long stretch of Happily Ever After years -- despite the size of the challenges before you during youth (18-30 are the peak years of peak challenge usually).  After 30, people tend to confront challenges (Conflict of a novel) using previously acquired and tested skills.  Everything that has happened, happens again, only this time you have the where-with-all to deal.

Humans on one side of the schism view the real world from the angle of, "If I just had X, Y, Z, then X, Y and Z would make me happy."  XYZ can be house, car, job, or it might be wife, kids, great vacations, or $7,000 suits, diamond cuff links and the respect I'm due.  Or alternatively, maybe "If I just had enough money, I'd be happy."  They "know" because they've seen people who have those "things" who are quite clearly "happy."

Humans on the other side of the schism view the real world from the angle of, "Wow, look at this amazing world full of glorious surprises and magnificent people! Life is such fantastic fun!"

In other words, some people deem Happiness to be a product of what happens to them, or their situation, or possessions. Other people deem Happiness to be a product of what they do in life, or give in life, or observe in life.

Both see Happiness as real, but identify the emotion's origin differently.

Many human cultures have enshrined this wisdom in various aphorisms.  Even those who seek "things" and "wealth" expecting it to "make" them happy know with their minds that things don't make happiness.  What they don't know is that Happiness Makes Things.

Happiness is a force, a simmering and muted Joy, that comes from deep down inside a human being and emanates outwards into their environment, creating and shaping that environment.  Things don't "happen to them."  Rather, "they happen to things."

We all know the Great Novels depicting the contented, glowing satisfaction that can envelope a household ostensibly impoverished of "things" where a good marriage creates fine children who go on to do great things in the world.

That is the President Abraham Lincoln legend -- log cabin, learning to read and study law by firelight, becoming President, freeing the slaves, being assassinated.

We have had Presidential Candidates galore bragging about their poverty-stricken origins and meteoric rise.

Poverty as a badge of honor -- or poverty as an excuse never to contribute to the world.

Same schism we've been talking about - the poor, living in poor neighborhoods see nobody who has succeeded to become not-poor.  Half of them know for a fact that's because there is no way to succeed (because if there were a way, they would see it), and the other half believe there must be a way, and if there is not then they'll create one.  Some of those found drug cartels, others become tech company CEO's or Senators.  Half can't be stopped because they believe, and the other half can't be started because they know.

It is amazing how many do succeed.  Most of us know how dispiriting grinding poverty is.

http://www.nature.com/news/poverty-linked-to-epigenetic-changes-and-mental-illness-1.19972

We've all read tons of novels about the poor little rich boy - the wastrel and ne'er do well, son of a Duke who gambles away the family fortune.  It's classic for a reason - it is real, it happened, it still happens.

So starting out with the presence or absence of wealth does not correlate with productivity and stability in life.

When we talk about the "Happily Ever After" we are referring to a Steady State -- a stable condition that does not change despite events.  It's not an absence of Events that characterizes the HEA years, but the inability of Events to change the state of "Happiness."

Think about that.  The HEA is about a Happiness that is not caused BY Events, and does not prevent Events (adverse and otherwise) from occurring.  The Happiness comes from within and is stable because it is not caused by "stuff" that is possessed, status, social standing, or reputation.

The HEA is a steady state.

In Chemistry, this is called Buffering - a buffered solution contains a reserve of chemicals that will absorb any acid tossed into the solution and convert the acid to a neutral, and other chemicals that will absorb any base tossed into the solution and convert that to a neutral.  The Buffered Solution will be measured at the same pH regardless of what is tossed into it.  It APPEARS stable.  You can measure it.  You can identify the numbers precisely.  You can see for a fact that it is stable.  It isn't. Its reserves get used up neutralizing whatever is tossed into it, so eventually its pH will change.

Life is like that.  Stability is only apparent.

Viewed from outside, a stable situation may seem unchanging even though it is really Buffered.

The HEA is like that buffered solution.  With enough stress, change is required.  But because of the Happiness being sourced within, not without, the emotional resources to make those changes are available.

So a person who has little or nothing, a person going through an impoverished stage of life (college student, student-loan years) (or living a whole life in that stage, never making it to college) may look at people who have a stable-seeming suburban life/job/kids/pets/mortgage/cars/ lifestyle and deem that the lifestyle makes them Happy because it is so stable (while the impoverished always have good reasons to feel threatened).

The people who have all those "things" and don't feel Happy may seek to acquire more things because they know people who have more and seem (from the outside) happier. Since they can see that it is so, they therefore know that it is so.  Just get more and be happy.


People who have reached a Happily Ever After plateau in life may take such pleasure in their "things" that they deem their happiness caused by the things.

You can construct Aliens who have this same schism -- or perhaps see their world and lives from a different angle.

Even humans have another way of looking at the world, but it involves a different concept of what a human being is, what the world is, and how humans and the world fit together into such a seamless whole that we can't figure out what happiness is, where it comes from, or how to acquire our fair share.

This would be termed the Spiritual view of the world, the view of the world where a Human is an ape-body hosting a Divine Spark of a Soul not just a collection of neurons subject to epigenetic modification by Events.

Thus Romance Genre is built upon the concept of the Soul Mate.

Because science fiction romance is "romance" genre, the worlds we use are built on the concept that romance is the primary precondition to marriage -- "I love you" and "Will you marry me" are generally at or near the END of the typical Romance novel.

So if the concept of the Soul (which nobody can see or measure, so we can only believe in it) seems un-realistic to a particular reader, the concept of the Soul Mate will be nonsense, and the entire foundation of the Happily Ever After crumbles to a painful Happily For Now.  The next incoming Event will knock the couple off their Happiness pinnacle and plunge them into more angst and agony.

But science fiction and fantasy readers, especially Paranormal Fantasy readers, are accustomed to believing six impossible things before breakfast.

If you can induce suspension of disbelief in your readers, you can draw them into a world you have built where Souls do exist, and Soul Mates do find each other and live happily ever after, not in the absence of adverse Events but despite that adversity, perhaps even relishing adversity.

It is tricky to write like that because you, the writer, must know what beliefs your reader holds dear and how to get that reader to suspend disbelief.

Try this approach.

Suppose your target reader is convinced there exists no such thing as a Happily Ever After because no couple he/she has ever known seems to live that way.

Perhaps you can sell that reader on the hypothesis that the HEA state of Life can be created, perhaps magically or perhaps by Computer Dating Service, Time Travel, Dimension Travel, or some other device.

You then have to explain to this reader why he/she can't observe any real people living in the HEA state right now.

One answer is well known in an old traditional religion, and it is privacy.

Here is a 30 minute video of an explanation of Jewish marriage ceremony customs that explains how essential to Happily Ever After is the establishment of 3 Private Spaces -- the woman's personal private space, the man's personal private space, and the Couple's very well defended personal private space.

http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/3343913/jewish/Secrets-of-the-Chupah.htm

This video explains the way that personal, individual sovereignty is the bedrock necessity for the forming of stable community (where, in this case, community is the married couple).  Remember "stable" is the Characteristic most identified with the HEA.

10 minutes into the video, the lecturer uses the term soul mate.

25 minutes into the video he discusses the 3-rings I'm using as a model below.

It is a much better constructed essay than any I've ever written. It sticks to the point, where I never do.

It is a 30 minute video, but worth every minute if you are irked by how hard it is to get readers to accept the HEA as plausible.

The solution to that problem is in that video -- but the fellow speaking probably has no idea what he's said.  Here is some of how I think it can be used in a Romance novel aimed at HEA-skeptics.

The individual, personal separateness maintained during all the years of marriage is here explained not as inimical to togetherness, but as the essential component of togetherness and to unconditional love.

Unconditional love (watch the video for the explanation of it in Marriage) generates "happiness."

Happiness is the outward flowing force that shapes the couple's world.  No incoming Event can alter the state of "happiness." because happiness does not originate without, does not come in from outside, but emanates from inside.

He's talking about forming a dwelling for the Love that Conquers All.

The description of the symbols of this ceremony can be used to explain to the disbeliever in the HEA that Happiness is not dependent on finding exactly the right person to marry, or on hammering the new spouse into the desired image, but on making the person you marry your Soul's Mate.

The Soul Mate condition is a creation, the result of a mutual and arduous effort on the parts of two people, who create that condition by respecting each other's personal privacy.

Not just any random pair can make a marriage, so a great deal of high precision discrimination is necessary to find a solid match.  But humans being humans, nobody's perfect, and parts match while other parts clash.  The point of the arranged marriage is not lack-of-clashing-parts, but rather stability of the Couple and their home, to raise children well.  Stability is the point, and it rests on privacy.

The secret sauce, the ingredient that forges all human Relationships, is Privacy.

What goes on between these walls stays between these walls.  When you come inside these walls, you leave your work outside with your muddy boots.  (see House of Zeor)

Personal sovereignty and personal privacy is being eroded in modern life, and concurrently we can see the deterioration of families, of marriages.  Is there a cause-effect relationship between those observations? You can build a number of Worlds around answers to that question, each to house stories with vastly divergent themes.  Study our current Reality, rip your stories from recent Headlines.

For example, one famous incident, way back at the end of June 2016, illustrates how Public Necessity now obliterates personal privacy and personal sovereignty.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/lawsuit-disabled-woman-injured-security-airport-40283511

---------quote------------

The lawsuit says an alarm went off as she and her mother were going through a security checkpoint operated by the Memphis International Airport Police Department and the Transportation Safety Administration. Hannah Cohen became disoriented by the alarm and the security workers' attempts to search her, the lawsuit says.

"The security personnel failed to recognize that she was confused because of her obvious disability and was unable to cooperate with the search," Cohen's lawyers, Kelly Pearson and William Hardwick, wrote in the lawsuit.

Her mother, Shirley Cohen, said she tried to tell TSA agents about her daughter's disability, but she was kept away by police.

"She's trying to get away from them but in the next instant, one of them had her down on the ground and hit her head on the floor. There was blood everywhere," Shirley Cohen told WREG-TV.

The lawsuit alleges the security personnel assaulted Hannah Cohen at the checkpoint, "causing her physical and emotional injury as well as emotional injury" to her mother.

Hannah Cohen was arrested, but the charges were later dropped. ...
--------end quote-------

Why would a TSA Agent make such an error?  Of course, later in the TSA's official (lawyer written) defense, lots more comes to light.

But we're not after facts, here.  We are ripping a Headline to use for story material.

We have a society where a complete stranger can forcibly (legally) lay hands on a person without any indication that the person is guilty of a crime, in fact where indications are that she is innocent of crime (though possibly a dupe of a suicide bomber).

The theoretical concept behind TSA "screening" (search all the innocent in case there's one maybe guilty among them) is Guilty Until Proven Innocent.  In fact, Law Enforcement has moved over the last few decades from removing criminals from circulation to preventing criminals from doing crimes, therefore leaving them in circulation.

Theory was always that it's better to let some criminals get away with crimes than to inconvenience an innocent person.

The innocent miscreant who did something by accident won't do it again.  The criminal will definitely do it again, and more boldly and carelessly, and therefore be caught and removed from circulation.  Law Enforcement need not worry about missing a guilty person, but only about inconveniencing the innocent.

Society can afford to take the damage from the few that get away.  This idea is based on the feeling of solid families firmly living the HEA, experiencing many adverse Events that do not alter their Happiness.

With the disintegration of the nuclear family, the perception dominating society is completely reversed.  We get happiness from things and status, and lose it by losing things and status -- a single criminal action can destroy our country, our American Dream of the HEA.

The theory that Law Enforcement can let a few criminals get away rather than inconvenience the innocent is completely reversed now.

Now Law Enforcement only worries about missing one, not about disrupting the lives of the innocent.  Just imagine how your Alien visitor sees that.

Think about Innocent Until Proven Guilty in terms of "believe what you can not see vs. know only what you can see."

You can believe a Guilty person is Innocent, and can know Guilt only by proof you can see.  Today, Law Enforcement now knows you are Guilty even if they can't see any proof, so they have the right to search you, despite your right to be not-searched.  The rights of the individual count for nothing before the fears (imaginary or not) of the Group. We can't afford to experience even one Adverse Event because it will destroy Happiness.  We must be safe from Events that might happen.

The right of the Group, society, people, the crowd, to be sure there are no bombs on you completely sets aside your right to be not-searched.  This is true of NSA email scanning, and even CDC disease monitoring, or Obamacare mandated screening for diseases you don't have.  You must test everyone to find the few problem people.  Guilty until proven innocent.  Not only that, but the burden of proving your innocence is on you, not the accuser.

The old legal theory of "Innocent Until Proven Guilty" comes from the Ancient Greeks where logic established that it is not possible to prove a negative.

You can prove that something does exist, but you can not prove that it does not exist.

Hence the problem with proving Souls exist.

Here is another item on the Ancient Greeks and Happiness:

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/a-better-kind-of-happiness
Nobody has figured a way to prove that souls exist, and since you can prove a positive, surely if Souls exist then we can prove it.

Because we have not proven Souls (and thus Soul Mates) do exist, probably about half of humanity is convinced that Souls do not exist.  The rest believe Souls exist without seeing them, or believe they do see them in the eyes of others.

The thesis is that you can not prove a negative, and mere lack of proof of the positive is not indicative of the negative being true.  Therefore, in a court of law, the accused does not have to prove innocence, but the prosecution must prove guilt.  At a TSA checkpoint, however, you must prove your innocence.

The schism that divides humanity between those who believe in what they can not see, and those who know only what they can see, is not always a 50/50 divide as it is today.  So you can create Aliens who have say, 10% Believers who understand humans in terms of Souls (therefore as possible mates) and 90% who know humans have no Souls because they can see from our behavior how soulless we are.

In other words, perhaps 10% of that Alien population would understand Innocent Until Proven Guilty.  They would view this TSA incident with genuine horror just as most of us do.  The woman was brain damaged, not soulless.

BTW the TSA's immediate rebuttal was that the burden of proper behavior rested with the brain impaired woman who should have called ahead to find out what the screening protocols were.  It so happened, in this one incident, the brain impaired woman (who had just had a cancerous tumor removed from her brain) was traveling with her mother (whose protestations were ignored by TSA).

But the impaired woman was 19 years old, and thus dealt with by TSA as an autonomous adult.

What has this to do with a Realistic Happily Ever After?

This incident illustrates what "realistic" means to those readers who don't believe in Souls because they are not proven to exist.  The woman's innocence was not proven, therefore her innocence did not exist.

We all are focused on preventing explosions and shootings in crowds.

We want to be certain we can go where we choose and not be murdered.  How can we not fear Terrorists?  They're very good at making people afraid, very professional at it because they get paid to instill fear in us.  These days even phoning in a bomb threat can divert a plane or cause it to gain a military escort.  So you can see, they have succeeded.  Why?  That tactic would never have worked on the USA of a hundred years ago - maybe 150 years ago.  What has changed?

The numbers clearly show an increased divorce rate, single parents, adults who were raised by single parents.

Of course, the misery of being unable to get a divorce and the even greater misery of unwanted children, has to be figured into the worldbuilding for an Alien Romance.  By targeting and solving those two problems (which admittedly desperately needed solving if we are to call ourselves human), may (or may not) have done collateral damage in unexpected ways.  What if your Aliens have evolved in such a way that solving those social problems does not destabilize their HEA?

So now we have the social problem of voters wanting to force their politicians to make them feel safe. Remember, this is an exercise in ripping story material from headlines.

Realistically, because some humans hide in crowds of humans then murder a bunch of the humans in the crowd (what if some in the crowd were visiting Aliens?), therefore we must search each and every member of that crowd to find the potential miscreants, and we'll know them by the weapons they carry.

Anyone carrying a weapon, or even just a pocket knife, is obviously a miscreant bent on murder of strangers.  So to find that one murderous person, every single person in the crowd (maybe attending a political rally or a concert) must be thoroughly searched.

Who should do the searching?  Law Enforcement -- i.e. government, crafted by politicians who have been elected on their promises to make everyone feel safe.

We discussed government and its power structures here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/10/alien-sexuality-part-3-corporate-greed_25.html

Government used to be tasked with securing our perimeter so we can function freely within it.

But since government has been unable to secure the Nation's borders from the current pop-up threats, we have now tasked government with the job of invading our privacy to keep us safe from having our privacy invaded.  Try explaining that to your visiting Alien diplomats while a TSA agent violates the being's sexual private parts.

What has this to do with marriage?

Did you take the time to watch that video?  It is full of story springboards.

Here is the URL again:

http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/3343913/jewish/Secrets-of-the-Chupah.htm

Now back to the video.  Here is a man.  Here is a woman.  They each acknowledge each other's personal space, personal sovereignty, individual foibles.  Together, in cooperation, they CREATE a third space, the Couple.  This new composite has its own space, its privacy, (and foibles).

This marriage between distinctively imperfect people will be solid, stable, "ever after" and at the same time, as a product of that stability, it will radiate Happiness, a force which shapes the surrounding reality.

Happiness does not come from "things" -- but rather "things" come from Happiness.

Happiness is the upwelling, out-flowing force that enriches the world.  It is a creative force, the Divine Love that is Unconditional and manifests as spikes of Joy exploding from a sea of Happiness filling a vessel fabricated from contentment.

This entire Rube Goldberg device called Marriage rests on one thing and one thing only -- privacy.

Marriage rests on three separate and special zones of PRIVACY.

Listen to that video.

The implications of this are stupendous.

The whole concept of the Happily Ever After ending as a "Realistic" goal of real people depends entirely on the establishment and maintaining of Privacy.

Examine how the place that privacy has in our world has changed over the last say, 100-150 years.

Think about what changes in privacy practices (and all the computer hacking related items) has in determining the course of life in today's world if this ancient practice of establishing a zone of privacy is soundly rooted in human nature.

Human Nature might be understood as the privacy zone of the Soul, the privacy zone of the Body, and the privacy zone of the Couple, Soul-Body=Human.

Think about how all this might be viewed by Aliens.

The incident with the brain damaged young woman is a great illustration of how primal bodily privacy is.

It is easy to imagine ( imagine, without basis in the facts of the actual incident) that a person in a brain fog of confusion simply reacts on a primal level to hands intruding into her PRIVATE SPACE, her bodily privacy, reacts as if being attacked by a rapist, and reacts by trying to get away (despite debilities).

Imagine what that intrusion would feel like.

Imagine how you would feel bewildered, in pain and bleeding from falling to the hard floor, then being separated and alone (she was arrested, but we're only imagining the arrest involved separating her; as a 19 year old, she would plausibly have been separated, but this is a story, and that is reality) -- so in our fiction she's alone with strangers in a strange place and has no idea why.

Remember all the posts where we've discussed "ripped from the headlines" -- this news item about the TSA incident is a headline and we are now ripping out the facts, ignoring the truth so we can tell our own story.

Now, imagine because of this news report on her trouble, she gets invited into some experimental stem cell treatment for her brain damage, her brain issues just miraculously clear up, and she fully understands this world and remembers what happened.

If you're doing an Alien Romance, of course the stem cell treatment is donated to Earth by the visiting Aliens, and because of publicity of the incident, she is chosen as the first experimental subject.  And she probably falls for the Alien who shepherds her through the treatment process.

But now she understands what was done to her by the TSA agent, and knows it was done in a perfectly legal way by humans who were convinced they were righteous, doing Good in the name of Good, keeping the public safe, and incidentally getting paid for it.

From the safety of a marriage to an Alien, what does she do?  If she has an HEA with the Alien, does she risk losing it?  If she's miserable, does she see an action that could make her happy?

The problem is half of humanity (that schism that has a mirror image among the Aliens) does not believe in the HEA because HEA only occurs when surrounded by those 7 circles of PRIVACY.

From the outside, you can not observe an HEA in progress.

HEA can not happen where it can be observed.  It can exist only in PRIVATE.

The HEA grows into existence within the privacy of marriage, but the kind of marriage within which the complete sovereignty of the individuals is observed.

As the video defined it, marriage is about Trust - the trust that privacy will not be breached.

The TSA, FBI, CIA and other alphabet agencies have been legally empowered to breach that privacy -- maybe because voters don't think privacy is important.

Small wonder that half of humanity doesn't believe in the HEA - you can't see it because it ceases to exist when you look.  Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle applied to the Soul?

Now, Human society is composed of the nuclear family.  Families amalgamate into tribes composed of related families.  Tribes amalgamate into larger groupings, counties, states, and Nations.

National Federal government rests on the privacy of marriage -- hence a spouse can not be forced to testify against a spouse, or an individual against self.  The whole house of cards comes tumbling down without that pure and absolute Trust that Privacy is honored.

But lets look at the larger social structures (remember we're writing Alien Romance).

Humans marry each other, creating the nuclear unit.

The Units likewise "marry" each other, in that same 3-way-circle structure described in the video.

First individual privacy is guaranteed, then two of the units create a new zone of privacy around them.  The Tribe exists within a circle of privacy created by trust in each other.

The Tribes then "marry" each other -- same process, two private individuals create a third private space, perhaps a County containing them both.  Counties marry each other to form States.  States marry each other to form The United States.  Eurozone seems to be a failed marriage - maybe because privacy has been violated.

Marriage is a business contract just like cities making counties and counties making states - all under constitutions with officers and bylaws.  A single couple's marriage is a contract, a business contract with value exchanged.  The same process creates States and Nations.

That is the theoretical basis of State's Rights -- each state is a zone of PRIVACY which exists because of Trust that privacy won't be violated, and because of that Trust the State or Nation produces Happiness which has the side-effect of producing riches.

In other words, the idea behind State's rights (history books aside) can be summed up by that video explaining Marriage as a process of establishing privacy within a bond of trust.

That's why our money says In God We Trust.

Without that trust in our privacy, without a personal perimeter into which government does not go, there is no family, and thus no Nation.

With that trust in our privacy being respected (even or especially by the TSA) we generate happiness that flows into the environment and creates the love that conquers all.

Unconditional love requires privacy to conquer all.  Consider, the IRS is also a hated monster -- its mission is to invade our privacy and even the private space of a marriage (filing jointly - your spouse cheats; you can go to jail).  We likely would not hate or distrust government if it didn't invade our privacy.

There is a huge difference between privacy and secrecy.  You could make a case for the idea that they are not even related.

Criminals keep their activities secret. Normal people guard their privacy.

It's not that simple, of course, humans being human, but entire thematic structures can be built from the nuances of these two concepts, private and secret.

Just look at Hillary Clinton's FBI investigation results.  Intent made the difference since she accidentally didn't keep her private email secret enough to conform with the law.  But it is not a felony to commit a felony by accident (or we'd all be in prison).  She wanted her privacy and saw no reason the law could interfere with her legitimate need for privacy.

Secrecy vs Privacy is a huge theme source for romance.  (Do watch that video.)

Here is more on thematic structures and love.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/01/falling-in-love.html

And here are two in the Believing In Happily Ever After series:

Standardization vs Customization:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-3.html

and

Nesting Huge Themes Inside Each Other:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-4.html

There are now 7 parts to Believing In The Happily Ever After.

The Index post goes up on this blog Tuesday, November 8, 2016
The link will be
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/index-to-believing-in-happily-ever-after.html
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Ponies and Changelings

The latest episode of MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC offers an interesting example of applying fantasy to real-world geopolitics—a "ripped from the headlines" story—with no explicit mention of actual events or peoples. In "The Times They Are a Changeling," Princess Twilight Sparkle travels to the Crystal Empire to visit her brother and sister-in-law (the prince and princess of that kingdom) and their baby filly. Twilight's assistant, young dragon Spike, accompanies her. The capital of the Crystal Empire is in the grip of paranoid fear because a changeling has been glimpsed in the area. Spike, who became a hero among the Crystal ponies on a previous visit, joins a squad of guards searching for the creature. Getting separated from the group, Spike stumbles upon the changeling and discovers that the terrifying monster, named Thorax, isn't a threat at all. In fact, the "monster" saves his life. Parasites who feed on love, changelings infiltrated Canterlot (capital of Equestria) in a former episode, their queen disguising herself as the Empire's princess—hence the Crystal ponies' state of high alert. But Thorax left the changeling country because he yearns to experience friendship without devouring love-energy in a destructive mode. If he can make friends, generating enough love in such relationships that he won't "starve," maybe he can rise above his nature and cease to pose a threat to others. Spike welcomes him as a potential friend, introducing him to Twilight and some of the Crystal ponies in the guise of an ordinary pony. When Thorax accidentally gets exposed, Spike fails to stand up for him. Realizing how he has betrayed his would-be friend, Spike goes after Thorax, persuades him to give friendship another chance, and changes the other ponies' minds about their belief that "there's no such thing as a nice changeling."

In the MY LITTLE PONY universe, a changeling is a creature that can disguise itself in the form of any other person (pony, dragon, etc.), what the D&D game calls a doppelganger. In folklore, changelings are fairies left in place of stolen babies. In some cases, adults could be suspected of being changelings, too. An Irish woman, Bridget Cleary, was burned to death in the modern, civilized year of 1895 because her husband claimed to believe—apparently sincerely—that she was a fairy changeling; by killing the substitute, he expected to get his "true" wife back. The MY LITTLE PONY concept and the folklore concept have one factor in common, that changelings can infiltrate normal society by posing as "one of us." Because they look like "normal" people, only constant vigilance can guard against the danger they present.

Just below the surface, "The Times They Are a Changeling" fits into the "good guy vampire" subgenre. Thorax fights against his predatory nature to find happiness through friendship. At the next layer down, though, it's a story about what terrorist threats do to individuals and societies. Because the changelings attacked in an earlier episode and almost destroyed the Crystal Empire, the Crystal ponies have become so paranoid that at first they suspect Twilight and her companions of being changelings in disguise. The citizens of the empire are determined to keep all changelings out, making no distinction between the evil ones and those who might be harmless. This climate of suspicion and fear leads Spike to turn against Thorax instead of supporting him at a critical moment. When the majority demonizes all members of a different nation or culture, it's hard to speak in defense of them.

The message of this episode isn't totally unproblematic. While Thorax wants to be "good," it's clear that all the rest of the changelings (all whom we see, anyway) really are dangerous, amoral predators. He's presented as more of an exception than an example. However, the ending offers hope that other changelings can learn about friendship and alter their world-view and behavior, just as Thorax has done. Evil isn't necessarily an essential part of their nature. On the level of the show's target preteen audience, this episode conveys yet another message about friendship overcoming differences. Adult viewers can perceive (or not, as they choose) deeper layers of applicability.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt