Soul Mates and the HEA, Real or Fantasy, Part 11 - Soulmates Explained

Soul Mates and the HEA, Real or Fantasy

Part 11

Soulmates Explained

Previous parts in this series are indexed at:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/05/index-to-soul-mates-and-hea-real-or.html

To convince a reader that, in your well-built world, Souls are real and it the components of reality necessary for two Souls to be "mates" are in existence, you have to take into account the target audience for your Romance novel.

This speaks to the topic of verisimilitude we keep returning to as a primary tool of the far-out science-fantasy writer.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/09/verisimilitude-vs-reality-part-5-so.html

For many decades, Romance publishers and writers, and readers, didn't consider "Romance Genre" as a science fiction genre -- and if "Fantasy" it was somewhere beneath bad comedy in the prestige list even though Romance has always out-sold Science Fiction.

Now, Paranormal Romance and Science Fiction Romance are considered "mixed" or "cross" genre.

My contention is that there is no mixing involved. Romance has always been science-fantasy.

Romance is "science" because it investigates the formation of bonds, just like chemical bonds, that we don't fully understand but we know they "just work."

Romance is "fantasy" because the plots represent the highest aspirations of the readers looking for a life-turning-point.

Most fans of Romance either know from experience or believe from self-knowledge, that Soul Mates
are real.

We either know a couple that just clicks like that, or we have been part of such a couple.

Those who flatly disbelieve in the HEA, the Happily Ever After ending, still enjoy a good Romance novel simply assuming that the ending is an HFN and eventually something will happen to catapult the couple into renewed misery.

As a Science-Fantasy subgenre, Romance has the opportunity to convey to the skeptics a real-world theory of what, exactly, Soul Mates are according to supernatural scientific theory.

Many religions grope into the problem of conveying a model of reality that includes Souls, immortal and otherwise, always trying to make it simple for the average person to grasp.

And where there are Souls, there is the possibility of two of them belonging together, somehow.  Maybe it's unfinished karma from a previous life, or a Parent-Child relationship playing out, or some other theory.

Maybe, if you're doing Aliens on another planet, you'll need to invent one (probably more) religion that is substantially different from anything suited to humans. To do that in a way that human readers can grasp and learn from, you will need to know a lot about a lot of different religions and their take on Souls.

There are questions to ask.

1) How are Souls structured?

2) What kind of civilization would Aliens without Souls create?

3) What kind of civilization would Aliens with complete, whole, self-contained Souls create?

4) Can Soul Mates bond completely and still have one or  both lack Happiness?

You'll need a real-world theory of Soul Mates, and a set of questions that probe your Alien culture to reveal how and why the Aliens differ from humans. Then you need to design a human who can bond across that Soul-Gap, and a reason why that human would do that.

Google Soulmates Explained and pull up a wide perspective on Souls and Mates.  Keep the frame of reference we explored in "So What Exactly Is Happiness"
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/09/verisimilitude-vs-reality-part-5-so.html

And keep asking yourself, as you read different philosophies, whether simply living with a Soul Mate, even bonding or marrying, produces Happiness.

Is meeting a Soul Mate a sufficient condition for the HEA?  Is it even a necessary condition of Happiness.

Then check out this 2-minute video explaining Soul Mates:

https://www.facebook.com/myJLI/videos/10159133735919411/

Notice the glancing reference to "life's purpose" or the purpose of life, and what that has to do with happiness.

To convince the skeptic that the HEA is real, in fact common, there is a lot of thinking to do about what Happiness actually is, if it even is a real thing.

Find out what your target audience thinks happiness is, find out why they think that, then challenge the roots of that belief. Disturb your readers and you will engrave your byline on their memories.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

How Do You Know If You've Written A Classic - Part 7 - How Do You Know These Two Are Soul Mates

How Do You Know If You've Written A Classic

Part 7

 How Do You Know These Two Are Soul Mates? 

Previous Parts in this series are indexed here:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/03/index-to-how-do-you-know-if-youve.html

Opposites attract, but do they always make a good team?

It is Ancient Wisdom that you shouldn't marry someone expecting them to "change" -- or expecting you can "change him."

But people do change, and the velocity of change can be ferocious during early life development (which is why we avoid marrying too young), and oddly enough, during the elder years (with the Second Time Around story).

It is said that if you're not a Democrat or Socialist when you're in your twenties, you have no heart, but if you're not a Republican or Capitalist when you're in your fifties, you have no brains.

Ferocious attention has been devoted to proving or disproving this notion that maturity dictates an individual's view of how society should govern itself.

In 1962 John Crittenden published a paper based on research funded by an award of a Law and Behavioral Science Fellowship at the University of Chicago Law School.

https://academic.oup.com/poq/article-abstract/26/4/648/1868747

The way party affiliation, or political views, tend to correlate with age has been a focus ever since.

Recent studies have shown that today people don't change their politics when they move to a state dominated by the other party, and people do not shift from progressive to conservative (or any other pair of polar opposites) of opinion as they age.

Science fiction writers ask: "Well, maybe they did shift, but they don't now. Why? What changed?"

Maybe there has been that kind of change in human nature, or maybe not.

Writing Science Fiction Romance will bring you to wrestle with the adage that human nature never changes.  Science Fiction is about science impacting human cultures.

See Part 18 of the Targeting a Readership series - Targeting a Culture
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/03/targeting-readership-part-18-targeting.html

Cultures change -- but the basic nature of the humans who form the culture doesn't change much. What does happen, over 280 year spans or multiples of that) is a shift in emphasis in a human generation.  What people all born in the same 20 year span think or feel is most important, most critical, most consequential.  Or in other words, what bothers them the most.

For that reason, we tend to make marriage matches with people of about the same age, and from the same culture (if not country).

Within the parameters of politics and generation, a person can find their match much more readily.  Many matches work just fine for all the decades of life to be lived, but a good match can be torn apart if one of the couple finds an actual Soul Mate.

Often, a couple merely matched will break up when one of them becomes so deeply infatuated (at a later age, it's really hard to admit to a teenager syndrome of infatuation) with another person, and believe they have found a Soul Mate.

A writer exploring the making and breaking of a marriage, in any setting and time, has to convince the current readership of the Soul Mate status.

It is possible for Soul Mates to stray because of an infatuation - what happens then? Does the marriage break then reform?

How does a person who is caught deep into an infatuation discover that the object of infatuation is not the Soul Mate they seem to be?

What is the diagnostic test for Soul Mating?

What will the reader accept as proof?

Today, families are riven apart by politics and arguments about how ethical, moral, or intelligent those who support one view (or the other) are.  The view espoused over the family dinner table can label a person so "deplorable" they will never be welcome in this house again.

So the problem, even if the hosting couple are genuine Soul Mates, becomes how do you change your in-laws' minds about an issue of right/wrong ways of thinking, of solving ethical dilemmas?

Such a dramatic scene, played out in show-don't-tell, in symbolism and dialogue, and storming out of the room, and returning in a different mood, and maybe pulling down reference books to prove a point, may become our next towering Classic that lasts forever.

To convince your reader that two Characters are true Soul Mates, show them handling such a delicate, strife-ridden family scene.

That scene would be the middle of a Happily Ever After novel, an epic fail of family bonds.

Say, for example, this family dinner were the celebration of a young couple's engagement where they are discussing Setting The Date.

The first half of the novel has to reveal the reasons why each of the family members holds the view of right/wrong that they do -- the view of justice, and the correct way to proceed with the wedding plans.  If the family is large enough, you can bet any date chosen will exclude someone.

It has to be soon because so-and-so is thinking of entering Hospice.

It has to be later because so-and-so has a scholarship for a year in school in (some exotic place that will give them major credential in job hunting - say Tokyo?).

It has to be here because most of us live here.

It has to be there because so-and-so can't travel.

It has to be somewhere else cheaper, or where the weather is nice that time of year.

Or if someone is running for public Office, there will be political reasons for place, date, and timing, possibly even religion or lack thereof could figure.

Watching this family define and solve the problem will telegraph to the reader which couples are actual Soul Mates -- and which are likely to break up next.

The first half of the novel reveals how each faction in the family arrives (by reason, by emotion, by unthinking commitments) at their stances on the matter.

The Soul Mate parent-couple in the family will show-don't-tell the solution, and lead all the factions toward each other.

This could take several chapters -- as groups break away and reform in the kitchen, the back porch, the front yard, even the garage to show off a new car, or one being fixed.

The Soul Mates won't impose their solution on the engaged couple, but rather bring up the basic principles they have always taught their children for social and family problem solving.

If the reader agrees with those principles, the reader will likely believe the elder couple are Soul Mates -- and by association, that the married-children of that couple are likewise Soul Mates.

For contrast, at least one couple should be merely a good match with a solid working relationship.

The second half of the book is all about the engaged couple trying to make the family chosen date-time-place actually work for them.  How they go about making the adjustments will reveal to the reader whether this young couple are Soul Mates.

Soul Mates fight each other harder and hotter than any other sort of partner.  But the fire exploding through their arguments heals rather than wounds.

Soul Mates argue - but they don't fight.  And they argue all the time over everything.  Vociferously.  Adamantly defending their positions.  Stubbornly returning to that position. All until they suddenly discover the error in their argument - then they change their mind and immediately admit that out loud.

A Soul Mate might not behave that way with anyone else, might fight all the time with others, concede or crow victory, and just be obnoxious about it.  But that behavior would change when in the presence of the Soul Mate.

The second half of the novel would include the engaged couple arguing shown in high contrast to another couple in the wedding party who fight each other over the same issue (e.g. which restaurant should the dinner be at).

The couple that fights, and simply can't be guided into arguing, ends up in divorce court just before the Soul Mates' wedding, while the couples that argue show up at all rehearsals and do their jobs smoothly.

What is the difference between an argument and a fight?

An argument is about what is right.

A fight is about who is right.

When it's about who is right, it is all about power, dominance, and avoiding confronting emotions.

When it is about what is right, it is all about the mutually shared, urgent, burning desire to choose right over wrong.

That is how Soul Mates are distinguished from other couples, and, whether they are conscious of it or not, readers can see the difference.

Sorting out right from wrong is hard, and humans rarely agree on how to apply those principles to solve real world problems (like choosing a restaurant).

The symbolic difference between fighting and arguing is simply whether the pair doing the shouting are articulating their reasons for their stances, then delineating why the other person's reasons don't apply to this case, or how that reason is based on a fallacy.

Soul Mates argue, destroying each others' reasons for holding a position, until they both agree -- often they evolve to agree on something neither knew before, or would have adopted as a position.

When Soul Mates argue to a conclusion, they are each thankful to the other for imparting new information or correcting an error.  Learning from a Soul Mate is a great joy, not an ignominious defeat that leads to subjugation.

A mismatched couple will fight, and if one of them always wins, the marriage will likely break up unless one of them prefers being subjugated.

Marriages based on a good match generally go through many fights, many arguments, ending with a basic score of 50/50, keeping the balance so neither is subjugated.

To convince readers your Soul Mates are genuine, you need contrasting couples, contrasting families, and contrasting Singles, divorcees, widows, etc.  We need to see them all fighting, arguing, and settling the matter to see the stark difference in methodologies.

The future Science Fiction Romance Classics will lay out this pattern around at least one Human/Alien couple.

The Classic that defines the field will (maybe already has) illustrate the nature of Soul Mates by how they go about solving problems using an Alien methodology.

My candidate for CLASSIC SCIENCE FICTION ROMANCE is the Alien Series by Gini Koch -- #16 came out in February 2018

https://www.amazon.com/Aliens-Abroad-Alien-Novels-Book-ebook/dp/B06XJYL8LY/

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Soul Mates and the HEA Real or Fantasy Part 9 Mixing Soul, Science and Politics by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Soul Mates and the HEA Real or Fantasy
Part 9

Mixing Soul, Science and Politics

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts of this series are indexed here:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/05/index-to-soul-mates-and-hea-real-or.html

More on how to incorporate Headlines that are current news into fiction plots, themes and Characters aimed at a possible future audience is here:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/08/index-to-posts-about-using-real-world.html

In Part 7 of Soul Mates and the HEA, we delved into the esoteric theories of how a Soul is structured and why science can't locate, identify, or characterize a Soul.

In Part 8 we looked at the Science behind the HEA, citing the most recent Harvard study, an 80 year project, that came down to steady life infused with happiness (by the study participants self-assessment of how happy they were with their lives) is most likely to be achieved by those who establish and maintain solid Relationships.

Relationships are key?

Really?

For this we need science?

An 80 year study?  How much did that cost?

So let's explore how Aliens (in our Alien Romances) might view happiness, and how that might cause a Conflict with humans they could fall in love with.

On this blog, in the Tuesday posts about writing craftsmanship, we're discussing the Romance Genre and the respect it garners (or does not garner) among the general population.

We've focused on how to convince skeptics and disbelievers in Romance that this genre actually contains value for them, personally.

There are so many urgent problems in our general society, that would, it seems to me, be more easily solved if everyone read Romance novels in their spare time.  You can take any Genre - Western, Mystery, Action, Intrigue, Suspense, Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy - and insert a Love Story.  From there, to a hybrid-Romance sub-genre is a matter of adjusting the Plot so that the usual genre content is carried on the Story while the Event-Sequence focuses on the stepwise development of the Relationship.

If Relationships are the key to Happiness, and therefore to Happily Ever After (THE HEA), and if as noted in Part 8 of this series of posts, the disruption of the family and its ties to local community has left a generation bereft of the brain-development necessary for Relationship Building, then it seems to me Romance genre is the key to healing society.

In Part 8, we also noted the epidemic of Loneliness now officially noticed by sociologists.

This Harvard study
https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/harvard-spent-80-years-studying-happiness-we-now-know-1-key-habit-that-makes-people-happier-the-problem-most-people-never-even-try.html

says many important things and links to other articles in Inc. Magazine, but this one stands out to me because it's mentioned only in passing:

---quote---
From a pure physical health perspective, researchers say loneliness is as bad for you as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
---end quote---

That's from US government statistics.

Here's the thing.  Tobacco use became a huge government focus, forcing warning labels with black borders onto packages, raising prices with huge taxes, litigating to bar smoking in public places without consent of others there (so now we have outdoor areas designated for smoking breaks).

So tell me, why isn't there government action targeting LONELINESS?

This same article in Inc. Magazine puts forth the cure for Loneliness.  It says people have the most success breaking out of the prison of loneliness when they VOLUNTEER -- to help others, just do something for free.

In Part 7 of this series we looked at theories of the intricate structure of the Soul as described in articles posted on chabad.org

That's a Jewish religious organization, the fastest growing one in recent decades.  People drift into it, feel comfortable, and just linger or return.

One core message of Judaism that has communicated to both Islam and Christianity, and which has arisen to prominence is all the other world Religions, is that doing a Charitable Deed benefits you as much (sometimes more) than others.

The leader of Chabad (called The Rebbe) often prescribed some act of Charity for the woes people brought to him.

Doing an act of Charity almost always changes a person's life direction, mostly for the better.

Mostly, it doesn't matter what the motive is.  GIVING initiates a cycle of interaction with the world that is different.

We talk of Giving And Receiving -- always with giving coming first in the sequence.

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

Is this a magical principle, a religious principle, a scientific principle, or some social or political principle?

Some might say the demands of "socialists" to strip wealth from the 1% and level the income distribution curve (nobody ever says to what slope we need to level it) is flat out wrong because it's stealing.

Others might say that the insane profit margins that "capitalists" demand are stealing.

Maybe they are both correct?

Maybe money isn't the root of all evil, but rather is the source of happiness?

Most religions extant today insist that money can't buy happiness.

Maybe they're wrong?  Maybe happiness can be evoked, instilled, triggered, or initiated somehow only by GIVING.  To give, you have to HAVE what to give.

Maybe the monetary transaction that transports happiness from one to another is not "purchase" at all?

Aliens with a different view of what a Soul is, and thus a different experience of Romance, Bonding, and all Relationships, might consider money (the artificially created coin of a realm, such as a dollar) a medium of exchange, but not one of "giving."

That is, Aliens might view Charity as every sort of Giving except the giving of money.

One can give Service, Respect, Honor, handicrafts, skills, education, information, and sometimes the Performing Arts can give entertainment.

If giving Charity, or as the article in Inc. Magazine noted, Volunteering, is the one thing securely happy people do, and happiness depends on secure Relationships, and Relationships depend on volunteering (e.g. giving) why isn't government focused on the Public Health Benefits of free will giving?

Giving, by definition, has to be a chosen action, a free will choice, without any coercion or requirement or form to fill out to prove you did it.

It's not a tax deduction.

What would these Aliens who think of Charity as everything but money see in us, today?

Today, government has become the largest Charity institution -- and has labeled many of its Charitable institutions "Services."  But all the Services are provided by people who are paid money (coined and regulated in value by that very government).

The money the government sends out to people who can't support themselves is likewise coined and valued by that government, but it is taken (by force of taxation) from the people who would benefit by giving it to the poor.

After having been fleeced by the government, these people don't have any money to give as Charity.

Small wonder loneliness is a spiritual plague sweeping the world.

What would the Aliens who don't see money as something you can give as Charity make of us?

Catholics still pass a plate at services, to collect donations, and the givers who put money in the plate gain in virtue.

When natural disasters strike, our first impulse is to establish a FUND, so people can GIVE MONEY.  Some organizations still collect things (food, blankets, shoes, laundry detergent) to distribute to disaster victims. But that has become too inefficient to be useful in today's world,  so organizations ask you to Message a certain number to donate $10.

It's a wonderful feeling to be able to help out others without getting mud on your own shoes -- but suppose our Aliens held us in contempt for that, and blamed the use of money instead of personal effort as the source of our misbehavior as a species.

Suppose we were deemed ineligible to join galactic civilization because we regard giving money as giving while at the same time the money we are giving has actually been TAKEN from its rightful owner?

Government TAKES from tax-payers.  Every cent government gives in disaster relief (or social services) it got by taking from its citizens.  Even coining money reduces the value of money people have saved, (that's hard to grasp, but it's true), so coining more money to distribute for disaster relief is another form of TAKING.

Taking doesn't have the same Soul-level effect as Giving does.

If the Aliens we're talking about regard Humans as having kindred Souls, as we noted in Part 7, G-dly Souls, and therefore regard humans as potential mates, potential Soul Mates, but see human Souls as somehow unable to mate because of trying to do Charity in impossible ways, what sort of Conflicts would you construct for your Alien Romance?

Humans might be regarded as infected with a Loneliness Plague (which could be deemed contagious) because of this abuse of Money.

The Loneliness Plague is deadly because it reduces lifespan measurably.  Humans know that, but ignore it and keep on (insanely, the Aliens would think) taking money by force and then giving it instead of real Charity.

Do you see what I'm doing with these Headlines?

The headlines combine into a Theme:  Giving and Receiving
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/theme-element-giving-and-receiving.html

From the THEME - a world is built.  A strange world inhabited by governments that take money by force.  Who ever could imagine such a thing?

The point of view Character has emerged, confounded by the specter of humanity and human insanity.  He's looking at a global civilization morally impaired by misbegotten beliefs and no valid concept of ownership, what it means, where it originates, what it's for, and what dangers it presents.

Humans are either idiots or proto-intelligences.  There's something very wrong with Earth.  It's toxic.

But his job is to infiltrate and map this global civilization.

So he puts on his human-disguise, lands in a remote location, and proceeds to infiltrate -- oh, say Los Angeles where the stranger would not be noted.

He's scared to death, but doing his job.

And he meets his Soul Mate.  She's out collecting Charity donations for Earthquake victims in Japan.

What is she asking for?  Money, bills or coins.

He's met his Soul Mate, and she's a raving lunatic who thinks Charity has something to do with money, especially government coined money.

What happens next?

Or take the set of Headlines we've discussed in Part 7, 8, and 9 and rip out a different theme, something having something to do with Loneliness, Happiness, and Volunteering.  Design your postulated Soul-Structure differently, so that your Theme, Conflict and Resolution speak about something other than Giving and Receiving, and Charity.

Find another answer to the question: "Why is government not addressing the Loneliness Plague as a disease caused by substituting Taking for Giving?"

That answer is your Theme.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 21 - The Couple's First Fight

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration

Part 21

The Couple's First Fight 

Previous entries indexed:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/index-to-theme-worldbuilding.html

Just because you're Soul Mates, does that mean you actually LIKE each other?

Science Fiction and Paranormal Romance writers may be able to avoid answering that question if they end off the novel at the first "I Love You."

But does Love=Like?

The HEA advocates promote the idea that you can't love someone without also liking them, that you two could get along with each other for all the decades ahead, and even prefer each-others' company.

The idea is that just feeling the sexual stirring at the sight of a person necessarily means you love them and therefore will never dislike them.  But more pragmatic HFN advocates sit through the blush of Romance expecting that First Fight at any moment.

Disliking the person you live with prevents any form of Happiness.

And that First Fight is a game-changer in a Relationship, setting up whether the two will LIKE each other after sexuality is no longer a factor (that is where the "ever after" part comes in.)

How can a Science Fiction or Paranormal Romance writer create that First Fight scene between Soul Mates and still leave the reader convinced (even if the Characters aren't convinced) that this is a Soul Mate match, and that Love will indeed Conquer the strife?

Can strife be vanquished by Conquering?  If your answer is yes, you have one set of themes to choose from, but if it is no, then you turn to another set of themes.  Does the application of Force cause humans (or your non-humans) to change their unconscious assumptions about the nature of reality?

The First Fight scene declares where the author stands on this obscure point.  The First Fight is the first time one member of the Couple attempts to use Force (yelling, stomping, throwing pillows, maybe breaking something, or even tactics like crying) to assert the preeminence of their own view of how things are and how they should go.  When the other member of the Couple responds with similar Force - you have a "fight."

Previous disagreements ... where to stop for lunch; which movie to see ... were settled without pyrotechnics, but this issue somehow hits a raw nerve and suddenly asserting preeminence is necessary for survival, for personal integrity, for Identity.  It is suicide to desist.

To engage the reader in this scene, so the Characters don't seem silly, immature, mis-matched, or headed for a murder-suicide scene, the writer must foreshadow all the elements of the argument.  Before the First Fight scene, the reader has to understand how deeply invested each Character is in the eternal truth of their assumption.  The writer has to show-don't-tell how the Character's Identity stands or falls on this pivotal issue.

With the reader thus waiting for the Characters to clash over this defining issue, the writer can frame that crucial, Relationship developing or dooming scene.

Scene Framing and development is taught very well in the SAVE THE CAT! series of writing books by Blake Snyder.

https://www.amazon.com/Save-Last-Book-Screenwriting-Youll/dp/1932907009/

We discussed scene structure in these posts.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure-part-2.html

Scenes, the building block of fiction, are plot elements, driven by "rising action" -- the increase in reader expectation of what will happen next.

In other words, each series of about 750 words must connect what just happened to what MIGHT happen next, and make the reader want to guess where we go from here.

In the typical action-fight scene, two people square off and go acrobatic, landing blows, throwing each others' bodies around and into walls, blood flows, and eventually one doesn't get up. The one left standing "wins."  Study fight scenes on TV (and chase scenes), take notes, observe how long each sub-sequence within the fight lasts.

The best fight scenes, in the longest running TV Series, engage the audience because they are graphic re-enactments of marital quarrels or fights.  Draw the connections between physical blows and psychological blows.

The opening clash in a fight scene defines the outcome.  Most "action" fight scenes define the outcome by defining the fight as a zero-sum-game -- I win; you lose.

We discussed how testosterone works in humans in a previous post.  As with many animals, a human male who has been conquered will not challenge that conquerer again. Testosterone levels of the loser of a fight plunge, while the winner rises.

Here are a few posts discussing that knuckling-under phenomenon, and how marriage and children can shift a man's testosterone profile:

Depicting the married hunk:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/depiction-part-19-depicting-married.html

Depicting Alien History
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/depiction-part-21-depicting-alien.html

Depicting Brain To Computer Links - (online bullying prevention)
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/09/depiction-part-32-depicting-brain-to.html

Soul Mate of the Kickass Heroine
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/07/theme-character-integration-part-13.html

As we noted in the previous post in this series, ...

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/05/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-20.html

...the reader is on a quest to solve the mystery, What Will Happen Next?

That's what keeps readers turning the pages, and buying the next book in the series.  It is what makes a book "interesting" --- not the topic, not the presence or absence of a love story, not the setting, or any of the elements readers point to when asked what interests them.  Any topic or setting, any Character, can be swathed in the cloak of mystery and lure any reader into turning a few pages.

LIFE is a mystery to be solved -- and a mystery every single living person is pursuing the solution to.  So all our "interesting" fiction hooks us with the mystery of  "Where do we come from?"  "Where are we going?" "Why are we here?"

These are mysteries leading us into the highest possible abstractions of theoretical thinking.  But the answers writers offer have to be applicable to everyday reality problems, such as "We just had our First Fight! Now what?"

While a couple is in the white-hot-heat of conflict (the essence of story is conflict), they rarely stop to grapple with the underlying philosophy of their own unconscious assumptions.

People fight over "do it my way" or "it's my turn" or "don't you dare" -- they don't fight over the definition of "I."

People fight over Who Is Right, not What Is Right.

If you want some examples of people actually arguing, not fighting, and arguing about what is right rather than who is right, check out the Talmud where each Rabbi's conclusions are carefully recorded with his name, preserved and studied.  Sometimes the issue is not resolved - and people choose to go with one or the other.

If nebulous abstractions such as right vs wrong enter the arena, it is generally only by powerful, screamed assertions not laying out of details of reasoning from the axiom behind the derived opinion.

So the fight becomes all about "Who Is Right" -- with nobody using the word "why" as anything but an accusation of malfeasance.

So to create that First Fight dialogue and make it convincing, the writer has to keep the actual issue over which the free flow of energy between the two lovers has become disrupted.

By keeping the dialogue "off the nose" (assuming you've read the whole Save The Cat! Series) you can inform the reader about the unconscious assumptions behind made by each Character, and you can display the essential incompatibility of the two different assumptions.

This pattern of unconscious assumptions gives the writer the opportunity to anchor the disagreement in everyday Reality -- even if the details of the issue being disagreed over have non-human, interstellar civilization, ghostly, angelic, demonic, origins.  The essence of Alien Romance is that each is alien to the other.

Each member of the Couple will be using a Visualization of the Macrocosmic All, a model of the universe, a model of reality, constructed in their minds, and the on-the-nose issue is really which model of reality matches actual reality closest.

NOTE: Consider the cliche argument between driver and map-reader when lost on unmarked country roads, where the map doesn't quite match what they are seeing out the windshield.  These days, imagine they have no cellphone bars way out there, and the car's built-in nav isn't working.

Should we stop to ask for directions? Who should we ask, the kid herding sheep by the side of the road?  The farmhouse over there?  The next gas station? The police station in the next town -- or the one behind us?

Both might agree that to get information, one should search where the information is likely to be.  But they might FIGHT over which option would be most likely to produce reliable information.

This type of argument (which comes in all guises) is really about two different assumptions about how the Universe is constructed.

The fictional universe which the writer constructs to convey the theme of the fictional work (Love Conquers All) has answers to those kinds of questions (where and how to get information most expeditiously.)

The best novels show how each Character's assumptions about their World are correct even while being mutually exclusive.  That is the resolution of any Conflict that generates plot and story -- you're both right and both wrong.  Here's what neither of you knew before.

Each scene, each chapter, and the book as a whole, starts with a specified CONFLICT, brings conflicting elements together releasing energy that drives the next developments.  The energy is released when the conflict of the page is resolved.

Many writers can specify a conflict nicely and neatly, but can't deliver a resolution that leaves most people delighted to have their assumptions validated or enjoying the partial validation that causes them to ask more questions.

So how does a writer resolve the map-reading controversy?

You look at the World you have built, at which elements differ from the reader's reality, how they differ, and what you want to say about that difference.  What you want to say is your Theme.

For example: Does God manifest in your fictional world? Would praying help the lost Couple find the farmhouse they are looking for?  Is there such a thing as ESP and does one of them have it?  Could the map reader telepathically pick the mind of the roadside shepherd?

Would the driver take the map reader's world for it?

If the driver takes the map reader's word for it, do they actually get where they're going?  The answer to this question is a Plot Development.

When they get more lost or arrive at destination, what has each learned?  The answer to that question is a Story Development.

Continuing the metaphor of a road map representing the Character's Visualization of the Macrocosmic All, the Character's notion of the shape, texture and moving parts of Reality, look at how closely the Character's map of reality represents his/her actual Reality (which is not quite the Reader's Reality).

The more your model of reality resembles your actual reality, the more successful your actions will be, the more accurately the results of actions will be predicted.  In other words, the mystery of life will be easier to solve, and thus the reader's quest for a solution to that mystery will be successful.

Remember, Romance is signified in astrology by the planet Neptune, and the blurring-of-reality effect Neptune transits have on people.  Neptune transits re-set priorities, generally bringing spiritual matters such as Souls into a higher priority than practical matters (Saturn) such as a paycheck (Venus).

Once the Neptune transit has wained, the Honeymoon is over, priorities revert and the new spouse is seen in a different light.  That's usually where the First Fight of memorable proportions occurs because each had set aside their ordinary priorities while falling in love.  Neither had been able to perceive the ordinary priorities of the other, didn't know they had differences or how crucial those set-aside beliefs were.

One reason so many people reject Romance as a Genre, reject the idea that Love can Conquer anything permanently, is that in our everyday world, we have observed very few examples of couples who have executed their First Fight smoothly.

Primate studies have shown the pure animal nature of the primate female has the odd property of having to LEARN to be a mother, to care for an infant. Female primates raised without a mother, without observing mothering, don't accept and nurture their offspring.

There are many basic human behaviors that we never think about having learned -- maybe because we learn them before we are verbally fluent, when tone of voice and posture speak more loudly than words.

Perhaps one of these behaviors that must be transmitted to our children early is about how to fight with a Soul Mate, and how to resolve conflicts.

Most likely, the First Fight scene happens before the couple has children to observe it, but how future fights progress to resolution (yes, it can take years to resolve some of these issues) will be determined by how the First Fight resolves.

https://www.amazon.com/Intimate-Enemy-Fight-Fair-Marriage/dp/0380003929/


Conflict Resolution is a huge topic in psychiatry, psychology, and every sort of life counseling and coaching.

One reason our everyday world is so fraught with strife, flame wars of vile language meant to inflict personal damage, and International flinging of bombs at each other, may simply be that these adults grew up without role models who fought and resolved personal conflicts.

On the most basic, psychological, level -- inside ourselves, between "Me, Myself, and I," we don't know what to do when challenged, contradicted, pre-empted, denigrated, set aside, ignored, or directly targeted (often by displaced anger or rage.)

From the point of view of the non-human, Alien From Outer Space, (the Spock Character, for example), our international disputes and the mud-slinging vitriol those disputes engender, seem utterly childish.

Look at some random international or political headlines -- the raw material you use for your novels.  Listen to the wording, and distinguish between the Journalist-headline-writer, the subject being quoted, and the target-audience for that headline.  Now go to the nearest K-6 school and watch kids in the playground during unsupervised or unstructured play.  Can you see a difference?

Watch some chimpanzee videos.  Look for similarities to headlines.

It becomes harder to imagine an Alien hunk falling in love with a human woman.

If the Aliens have matured past projecting their playground animosities onto the World Stage, your Hero would feel little but revulsion at the sight of a human.

If the Aliens have never had this behavior pattern, humans would be too alien to them for a Soul Mate bond to gel.

One good Conflict to build science fiction around would be genuine Soul Mates born so alien to one another that the natural attraction is more than countered by the innate revulsion.  It's been done several times and done well.

The Romance writer, of any sub-genre, looking to argue the anti-Romance readers into believing in the HEA, has to be able to argue both sides of the HEA issue.

If the HEA is possible, what conditions have to be met?

Is the HEA a "special case" in the World you are building?

Or is the HEA an inevitable consequence of that World's structure?

Assuming the HEA is an inevitable consequence of the structure of the world you have built, provided only that true Soul Mates meet, how do you live happily ever after if you discover you don't LIKE the person you LOVE?

Add an element to the world, the physics and spiritual reality of that world to answer the question of whether love=like.

Do Soul Mates always love each other? At first sight, or does love have to be built?

Is Love temporary (e.g. you can fall out of love because of a fight), or is Love  simply eternal, so live with it because you can't get out of it?

Your definition of Love, rooted in the premises of the world you build for your Characters, will determine how that First Fight comes out.  But whether they learn how to "fight fair" and how to apologize, and how to "make up" must grow out of the Characterization you've "depicted" prior to that first fight scene.

What you build into your Characters and their World also determines the outcome the fight.  If one wins, the other loses part of their Identity (which can become an open wound decades later).  If both win, or both lose, that sets up a process of compromise later -- leaving everyone unhappy over what was lost.

The "ever after" part of the HEA ending is the springboard into the expectation that the Couple will resolve every future conflict with the same firm, smoothness that the reader has seen in their First Fight.

To get that smoothness, there can't be winning and losing.  Compromise means each loses something, and that may seem fair and right to some people, but it won't seem HAPPY.  "Happy" is getting everything you need and most of what you want, with the prospect of getting the rest eventually.

Happy is satisfied.

How do you reach that kind of a resolution to a conflict?  By not having one prevail over the other.  No defeats, no sacrifices, no deprivations for the sake of the other.

As far as I know, the only disagreements that can be resolved without the win/lose, zero-sum-game paradigm of Reality are the disagreements about WHAT is right, based on the unconscious assumption that it will FEEL GOOD to discover any mistakes you've made in determining what is right.

Take the driver vs map-reader example.  They both want to get where they are going -- maybe house-hunting a rural farm.  It doesn't matter which of them made what mistake.  It matters only to discover the mistake and FIX IT, both adopting the best solution.

Most people HATE IT when their mistakes are on open display, especially before someone whose good opinion matters to them.

So if a spouse digs out a mistake the other spouse has made, that mistake has to be put on the table WITHOUT BLAME.

If the First Fight scene ends with uncovering a mistake, and the discoverer uses it as a club to bludgeon the other's emotions, or in some fashion uses some very private, very personal information to evoke EMBARRASSMENT, then from that moment on, there may be love (and even great sex) but the embarrassed one will not LIKE the embarrasser.


Perhaps the First Fight ends with both parties standing corrected.  They can share their chagrin.  And that would bond them more deeply.  Love and Like can come together.

And even stronger bond of liking the lover can be forged where there is real, palpable guilt, embarrassment, loss of self-confidence, in the one who made the mistake, and the one who had the correct answer responds to the instant defensive attack of the embarrassed one with a kind, gentle, understanding.

If the defense is met with a shift in perspective executed using intimate knowledge, the defense would come down and apologies wouldn't be necessary or even appropriate.  No winner.  No loser.  Just a correct course plotted to their new home.

The Relationship will then gel instantly when the embarrassed one watches as the correct one shields their PRIVACY by not letting anyone know what happened.

Readers will believe this Couple has won through to an HEA because privacy is guarded.

Be sure to note the difference between privacy and secrecy - huge topic, so here are a couple of places I mentioned it.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/worldbuilding-from-reality-part-5.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/09/depiction-part-33-depicting-privacy-by.html

And that may be the greatest key to the HEA -- both members of the couple build a wall of sacrosanct privacy around themselves.  They guard each others vulnerable spots so they trust each other to fight fair.

In our current culture, the very notion of Privacy is being challenged.  Could be that the Romance Genre's HEA will point us all to a better attitude.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Index to Soul Mates and the HEA Real or Fantasy

Index to Soul Mates and the HEA Real or Fantasy

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

Why don't people believe a Happily Ever After "ending" is possible in real life, and if it isn't possible to achieve in reality, what's wrong with reading about it?

This series explores this complex issue from several directions.

Part 1 Are Soul Mates who find each other destined for an HEA?
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/03/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

Part 2
Why do readers reject the Romance Genre, but accept the Love Story sub-plot?
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/08/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

Here is a set of links to previous posts in other series of posts on this blog being applied to this problem in the Soul Mates and the HEA series:
We have discussed the plausibility of the Soul Mate hypothesis and the Happily Ever After goal hypothesis in many different contexts.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/06/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-14.html
If the HEA is implausible, how come it happens?
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/01/if-hea-is-implausible-how-come-it.html
The Cheating Woman
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/03/happily-ever-after-life-patterns-part-2.html
Nesting Huge Themes Inside Each Other (building the foundation of a series)
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-4.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/index-to-believing-in-happily-ever-after.html
And What Does She See In Him?
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-does-she-see-in-him.html

Part 3  of Soul Mates And The HEA Real or Fantasy -Convincing Your Reader
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/09/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

Part 4
Is Monkey Sex Best There Can Be?
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/09/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part_11.html

Part 5
Domestic Violence During the HEA
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/09/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part_18.html

Part 6
Love Vs. Romance
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/05/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

Part 7
Is The HEA Balderdash?
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/09/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

Part 8
The Science of the HEA
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/09/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part_10.html

Part 9
Mixing Soul, Science and Politics
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/09/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part_17.html

Part 10
Smallest Indivisible Particle of Soul
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/02/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

Part 11
Soulmates Explained
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/10/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Soul Mates and the HEA Real or Fantasy Part 6 - Love Vs. Romance

Soul Mates and the HEA

 Real or Fantasy

Part 6

Love  Vs. Romance 

Previous parts in the Soul Mates and the HEA series are:

Part 1
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/03/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

Part 2
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/08/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

Part 3
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/09/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

Part 4
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/09/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part_11.html

Part 5
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/09/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part_18.html

In a post About Building a Hero Character from the fabric of your Theme,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/02/theme-character-integration-part-16.html

I mentioned the TV Series NCIS
as lacking in "Romance" which prompted Margaret Carter (who posts here on Thursdays) to comment:

-----quote--------
I have reservations about your comment on absence of Love (Romance) on NCIS. In the course of the series, we've seen McGee and Jimmy (the assistant medical examiner) fall in love, get married, have children. Given the genre of the series, these are necessarily subplots, not main plots, but they are there. And we saw Tony give up his NCIS career to move out of the country and become a father to his newly discovered child (not romance, but familial Love -- although, granted, this event removes him from the series).

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

Margaret Carter (a widely known scholar) is, of course, correct that, from time to time in the long-running NCIS Series, we have seen Characters become involved, move in together, break up, marry, have kids, and generally have a real life outside crime-solving, behaving like "everyone else" living in 21st Century USA.

And I do believe romance writers can learn a lot by studying the scripting of NCIS episodes to a depth where the nuances between Love and Romance -- and the overlap zones  between the two -- become more vividly apparent.

Studying TV Series, or book series, by watching or reading the episodes in rapid succession is a worthwhile exercise because, after much repetition, you internalize the format, shape of the story, pacing of the plot, and perhaps most important, the boundaries of a genre.

Successful, long running, expensive-to-make TV Series, give you an understanding of the narrow tolerances of a broad audience.  Failed TV Series (3 seasons or less, regardless of budget), give you an understanding of the wide tolerances of a narrow audience.

Romance readers are, actually, a very broad audience, narrowly focused on how couples get together -- and even, how there can be an HEA in your future after the heartbreak of a relationship failure, or a widowhood.

TV audiences are even broader, as they must include people who hate "mushy stuff" or Romance in any form, who think spaced-out "In Love" condition is a form of insanity bound to lead to a nasty breakup, and who know from experience that happiness in real life comes in flashes, quickly overshadowed by Harsh Reality.

Dark, Gritty, Grim, Bloody -- those are the attitudes Characters must have toward their fictional realities in order to seem "realistic" to the broadest audiences today.

Today -- but not long ago, and perhaps in the future we will see a brighter view of Reality re-assert itself.

Currently, there is a strong current of disbelief of the existence of anything resembling an HEA - a Happily Ever After ending, the very "ending" that defines the Romance Genre.

Just as the "adventure" genre (to which science fiction has been erroneously thought to belong) requires the Hero to "win" at the end - to vanquish the villain, to overcome all obstacles, to succeed - the Romance Genre requires the Couple (as a unit, as a Hero) to form a lasting bond despite all obstacles.

The Romance writer's main plot-search is always for creative obstacles to keep the Couple apart, strand them as separate individuals.

Love Conquers All is the over-arching Romance Genre Theme, but the definitions of "conquer" and "all" are wide open to interpretation.

So, Margaret's observation deserves deeper scrutiny. 

In the series, NCIS, there is plenty of Love -- every sort of bonding and Relationship Driven Plotting has been touched on over the 15 (or more) years this show has run.

But in the various sub-stories of the lives of the Special Agents (and of the criminals, and the victims), we find no HEA presented. 

Our Main Hero, Gibbs, is single -- with 6 marriages behind him.  No HEA, and no further hope burns within him. A glimmering surfaces from time to time, but his life is all about murders and destroying criminals. 

NCIS exemplifies the lives of those who have given up the search for a Soul Mate.  They live in worlds circumscribed by the HFN - Happily For Now - flashes of happiness sprinkled along the time-line of otherwise dark/grim lives.

The other Special Agents on Gibb's team have other Dark/Grim/Pluto-driven lives -- Tony had a kid he didn't even know about until the mother (arguably his Soul Mate) was presumably killed.  He ditches the job he loves to move to Paris to raise that kid.  What had seemed a bright Romance in his life, flirting and teasing for years, is dashed to bits.  More pain is in store as it seems possible Ziva might be alive.  Is this the story-arc of true Soul Mates?

As Margaret noted, we have seen the assistant medical examiner and McGee (the resident computer Geek, complimenting Abby's wider skills) "fall in love, marry, have kids." 

This raises the question of what the difference is between "falling in love" and "Genuine Romance." 

The Main Character in NCIS (the hero, the Star of the Show, the one whose face is on screen more than any other), Gibbs, has the key-life-pattern that sets up the theme for all the Relationships on the show.

To be a work of Art, a TV Series has to have thematic coherence.  In real life, the people who work together on a team generally do not have that sort of coherence.  When Karma is active, though, even in real life task-forces and groups teaming up to a single purpose do, indeed, have the potential for thematic coherence. 

When you see that coherence emerging in a real life Group you belong to (sub-sets of Star Trek fans, for example, or fans of a particular author), it can set your hair on end.  It is downright spooky.  Like seeing a ghost, you know it is not real, but it is real --- it is more real than Reality Itself.

Fiction, such as TV Series or novels, reveal that dimension of Reality -- or conceal it -- as part of the thematic structure of the Worldbuilding.  That depiction is the Art of Fiction.

Romance Genre is designed to reveal the reality of an otherwise invisible dimension through which the Bond of Soul Mates operates. 

In ordinary consciousness, humans can not perceive that dimension where those Bonds tie us together.  During certain Neptune Transits to your Natal Chart, that perceptual channel is activated, sometimes opened wide, sometimes just tingling with energy. 

Neptune adds a dimension to perception of the nature of Reality.  It isn't a choice -- either reality has an HEA built into it, OR it doesn't.  No-no, that is not how humans apprehend life.  It is more a matter of "sometimes you can see where you're going, and sometimes you can't see." 

Neptune perceptivity comes and goes -- and usually comes on bright and irresistible only once in a normal lifetime. 

As noted on NCIS, Gibbs had a Soul Mate and a child, and they were both killed.  He, while still in charge of a unit at NCIS, sneaks off an murders the man responsible for their deaths. Some of his team know what he did -- he gets away with it.  That is "Dark" - "Grim" - "Gritty" - and a life-story-shape incompatible with the Romance Genre.

Gibb's biography is re-echoed in the biographies of all the other Characters he searches out, vets, and accepts onto his Team.  The Team reflects the darkness that envelopes his soul.  And he does have a soul!  He is both at ease with the murder of the murderer of his Soul Mate, and endlessly anguished about it. 

All of those he accepts onto the Team have the beautiful light of Gibb's Soul in common with him, and are thus willing, able, and eager to Love, to bond (with each other, and with spouses, children, etc.).  But they also share the Dark, the failures, the guilts, the horrible dramatic (Pluto-driven) tragedies akin to Gibb's biography.

One external symbolic sequence that illustrates the patched-over-Souls struggling on with life in a dim, grim, duty-and-responsibility job, was when the producers destroyed the Office section where all the desks are grouped.  They all hate the orange/reddish color of the wall paint, and many are not comfortable with the skylight, yet when the place is rebuilt after the explosion -- it is repainted that exact shade of orange.

Emotional and spiritual lives are reconstructed and repainted like that -- mimicking the past in a desperate grab at continuity. 

That sequence is worth studying as an example of the use of symbolism.

The NCIS Series shows us a world powered by love - love of fellow workers, love of law and order, love of innocent victims, love of special individuals, love of elder-mentors, love of children, and an occasional glimpse of love for a parent or grandparent. 

Margaret is correct.  The Series is permeated with Love, and occasionally, temporarily, Love wins out.

The Art of NCIS the TV Series shows in the unending job of  solving crimes. There's never a lack of crime, especially murder of Marines, on and off duty, active and retired.  The blackest, darkest, most vicious aspect of human nature is bottomless, endless, –– law and order can't WIN against this element of human nature.  The job is a pure description of a life of utter futility -- definitely Grimly Ever After. 

But they solve the crimes. These torn, shattered people team up and WIN against criminals (more so than other teams.)

But their wins are just temporary flashes - HFN.  Something to celebrate, then move on.

This artistic statement of the nature of humanity and human life poses the question, "Is life a futile groping through darkness spangled with flickers of Love?" 

And the Romance writer answers, "No, life is Love, floodlit by goodness, punctuated with meaningful obstacles."  Every obstacle overcome by Love is a Soul-lesson well (and cheaply) learned.

So you can write a cop-show that is a Romance, around a main character who is living his/her HEA, joyfully upholding the law, learning about humanity's aspirations toward goodness, kindness, and generosity of spirit.

One mystery series that seemed to start out to be such a story is Faye Kellerman's Decker/Lazarus novels, starting with a true Romance Mystery Detective cross-genre award winning novel, The Ritual Bath. 

https://www.amazon.com/Ritual-Bath-First-Decker-Lazarus-ebook/dp/B000W916C0/

The series follows the couple after Decker rescues Lazarus and marries her (and her kids), through them having a child of their own, through putting the children through school, through visiting in-laws, through a whole cop-career, to retirement to become a small-town-cop. 

The series depicts the world of NCIS via civilian Homicide division in the big city - the endless and overwhelming job - without the failed HEA being the core organizing principle of the Theme.

A successful marriage, plenty of drama, lots of personalities and conflict, but a very realistic HEA situation.  This series almost defines what an HEA looks like in our real world -- plenty of dark grit, plenty of awkward social situations, but Love fueled by an unending Romance energizes these Characters.

The dimension of Reality that Romance adds to mere Love is (very oddly) stability.

Romance, as I've noted is made available to real life people during some Neptune transits to their Natal Charts.  Neptune "dissolves" reality, wipes away barriers.  That is the definition of the Romance Genre (Love Conquers All).

Love, on the other hand, is made available to real life people during certain Venus transits to the Natal Chart, or Solar Arc transits of Natal planet to Natal planet.  It is Venus to something, or something to Venus -- Venus is always in the mix. 

Neptune is famous for destabilizing, and Venus is famous for giving nice feelings, wealth and pleasure.  Venus rules Beauty (Taurus) and Justice (Libra). 

When Neptune and Venus combine in an easy-flowing way, you get stability, or something like Chemistry's "steady state" (which is always changing, but always returning to a central value).  You find pleasure and profit in mystery, change, processes that alter your opinions of what is just and right, discoveries of what is inside.

Neptune (Romance/altered-consciousness) and Venus (Love, Beauty) combine in many different ways to produce a dynamic stability we call the HEA -- Venus being "happy" and Neptune being "ever after" (uncertain future.)

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Soul Mates and the HEA, Real or Fantasy Part 3 - Convincing Your Reader

Soul Mates and the HEA, Real or Fantasy

Part 3

Convincing Your Reader

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

Previous parts of this series on Soul Mates linked into and through the HEA are:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/03/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/08/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

Part 2 starts with a list of related posts and the Index post to the series of Believing in the Happily Ever After.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/index-to-believing-in-happily-ever-after.html

One major reason "the general public" does not read Romance Genre, or hasn't read any Romance but believes Romance is trash, is that to be a genuine Romance popular among Romance readers (and award winning), a novel must have an HEA, a Happily Ever After ending for the most beloved couple.  Other Characters may get their comeuppance, but the main Characters must leap off the end of the novel into an HEA.

The general public doesn't accept the premise that the HEA exists in real life.  At most, real people can hope for an HFN (Happy For Now) state of affairs.

That is actually not true, but very few people understand that, so if you are aiming to market a Romance to the general (wider) public, then you must have at least one skeptical Character who will have his/her mind changed by your Thematic argument, and one Character who will not undergo a shift of opinion. 

Though Theme is always a simple, clear, short statement, the novel the theme generates is actually an argument in which the writer must present the case for, and the case against, the theme, ending without forcing a conclusion on the Reader.  The novelist must respect the Reader's intelligence.

This kind of Reader skepticism about the premise of the novel, about the essential defining theme of an entire genre, is one thing Readers of Science Fiction and Mystery have in common.

In Mystery/Detective genres, the defining theme is that Justice Will Prevail.

In Science Fiction and sub-genres, the defining theme is that Science Conquers All, even though right now Science is utterly wrong about the novel's main problem or premise (e.g. you can't go faster than the speed of light).

In Science Fiction, the favorite genre of working Scientists, the state of your reader's mind when you make them believe the impossible (e.g. you can go faster than light) is called "Suspension of Disbelief."

You don't have to make them believe, but just stop disbelieving.

Previously, the Romance Genre aimed at an audience that already believed in the existence and accessibility of the HEA - just find your Soul Mate, win his attention, and you've got it made.

Romance readers find "accidental meetings" with the Soul Mate entirely plausible -- in fact, Romance genre audience expect that most often in real life, that its how Soul Mates meet -- by accident.

These attitudes make Science Fiction and Romance Readers almost identical markets.

In real life history of Science, most civilization blossoming Discoveries happened by accident.

In real life history of Romance, most vast culture shifting Stories (Helen of Troy), happen almost by accident.

But after the initial Event happens, both genres require Strong Characters to act boldly and heroically to move lives, family attitudes, public Grant Money, into the project (a marriage, or a Doctoral Thesis).

Science Fiction is usually about a Scientist who is good at Science being called out to do Action/Adventure Heroic Deeds.  The cliche image of the Scientist is a person who is physically inept, socially challenged, and incapable of heroism (Clark Kent).  The story in Science Fiction is usually about Clark Kent ripping off his shirt and leaping into the sky as Superman.

Romance is usually about a young girl who lives in an intolerable situation, may be good at managing the situation but is called out to do Scary Commitment Heroic Deeds.  The cliche image of the young woman is a person who is subservient, a victim, a child in an adult body who wants to be rescued and taken care of -- instead of rescuing and taking care of.  The story in Romance Genre is about the child inside growing up into the adult role of womanhood (despite having to be a Lady, sometimes).

In other words, both genres are about a revelation of Identity.  Self-discovery, or demonstration to others about the true nature of this Character.

So how can the Science Fiction Romance writer convince Readers to suspend disbelief in the HEA?

Both genres focus on Characters becoming Strong.

In Science Fiction, the Character's Strength is developed as physical challenges are overcome using intellectual attributes.

In Romance, the Character's Strength is developed as sexual challenges are overcome using intellectual attributes.

You might challenge the idea that hot-sweaty Romance requires application of intellectual attributes, but consider the intellectual courage necessary to throw off the shackles of convention, of self-image, of Identity, and explore the full range of the physical body.

In Theme-Character Integration Part 13
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/07/theme-character-integration-part-13.html
we pondered the idea that strength of character, in real life and in fantasy fiction, is proportionate to the strength of the connection between Soul and Body, that allows the Soul to train, tame, and domesticate the animal body, the purely physical nature.

A human differs from other creatures in that the human Soul is keeper and custodian of the Body.  When the purely animal nature prevails, the person behaves like any other primate - with lust overcoming common sense, with the need for revenge ripping the life to shreds.  Humans who commit what civilization calls "atrocities" against other humans, or who derive joy from ripping animals to bloody shreds, (but aren't technically insane people), are often recognized as "animals" because the Soul part of the person is not evident to other humans.

So if the hypothesis that the Soul exists and that humans are dual-beings, body-and-soul, welded into a single, inextricable whole, is accepted by the Reader, then the idea of a Soul Mate can be easily introduced.

So again, how can a Science Fiction Romance writer convince the wider readership to suspend disbelief in the HEA?

What exact is a Happily Ever After?

Science fiction readers have one concept of "ever after" -- Romance genre fans might not be as well versed in the mathematics of Time and so some might have a different idea of how long "ever after" lasts.

Lets assume the readers we are discussing all regard "ever after" as "until death do us part."

Dying before you've held your grandchildren, or taught them to fish, hunt and till the soil, could be considered a tragedy, while dying of old age surrounded by grandchildren would be a satisfactory "ever after."

This brings us to the question of what is Happiness?

It is said to be impossible to achieve by pursuing it.  But what is happiness?

How can you portray two Characters reaching an HEA if you, the writer, does not have a working definition of Happiness?

Happiness has to be very complex and must have some abstract, maybe mystical, components.

Maybe Romance Genre's HEA is actually not Happily Ever After, but Peacefully Ever After?

Can you have happiness without peace?  Can you have peace without happiness?

Some couples happily fight, bicker, rage and take out the anger generated at a job on their Mate.  It may not look or sound like peace, but something tranquil is going on there.

Some couples never raise their voices to each other or pick and criticize each other.  A few of those actually stay married through their grandchildren's weddings!

Sometimes marriages founder when one person is happy and the other not.  A spouse's happiness might not be contagious.

What is happiness?

Maybe we just have to accept that Happiness is different for each individual person.

Or maybe the sensation, the emotion of Happiness is the same for everyone, but the external conditions that trigger that emotional condition differ from person to person?

Could happiness depend on external situations not influenced by individual preferences and actions?

What is a Happily Ever After ending?

Are people happy when nothing bothers them?

Are there people who love to be miserable?  Or at least morose?

Would eliminating annoyances require removing bothersome, annoying and irritating elements from the environment?

Can people be happy in turmoil?

Well, then what is the relationship between Happiness and Strength of Character?

How many War Romances have you read and enjoyed?  Happiness (maybe not of the ever after variety, but definitely happiness) can be triggered and even sustained in a war situation with explosions and falling debris at irregular intervals.

So it isn't always the external situation that determines if the happiness is an ever-after sort.

Maybe Soul Mates create happiness for each other, just because they are Soul Mates.

A "mate" is not a copy, not the same -- but complementary.  A mate is not an opposite so much as a "fill in the weaker spots" fit.

In the case of Strong Characters as defined by the idea of Character being the connection between Soul and Body, and strength being the leadership of the Soul over the Body (STRENGTH CARD IN TAROT).

Can a weak Character be Happy?

Can an un-mated Character be Happy?

There are probably as many ways to achieve Happiness as there are definitions of Character, Soul and Happiness.

Each definition of Happiness, Character and Soul, and every combination of the three, generates a Theme which is vast enough to support an entire novel series.

A "story of my life" is centered on the pivot point of the change in the main Character.

As noted above, in Science Fiction it is the matured Science-nerd becoming the Action-Hero -- in other words, balancing intellectual courage with animal courage, Soul-Body Integration becoming strong and firm.  Thus Science Fiction is about a Weak Character Becoming A Strong Character.

Romance genre is about the matured girl becoming the Emotion-Hero -- in other words, balancing intellectual courage with animal courage, "giving herself to a man."  The Soul-Body integration of the valiant woman, the committed warrior woman, "makes a man of" a mere male.

In both genres, the Character becomes stronger, more integrated Soul and Body, because of the external Events of the Plot.

However, in Romance genre, you must deal with 4 variables ( a Boolean Algebra ) like the 4 Letters of the Divine Name.

You have two Souls, and two Bodies, and all four of them must undergo some change to fit together and become a single, strong unit.

The process (story and plot) of growth and change can be very painful, very miserable and not at all happy.  Happiness, though, might well be defined as having grown -- having grown enough to be able to look back and see the former self as immature.

Both Science Fiction and Romance genres are about yearning, striving, and committing to a strike for freedom (from different things, but always becoming free is the goal).

So it could be that both Science Fiction and Romance are genres aimed at a readership that prizes Freedom as opposed to Power.

Power may be identified as "My Will Prevails Over Yours - Don't Bother Me - Get Out of My Way Or I'll Destroy You."

Neither Science Fiction nor Romance Lead Characters will abide oppression -- not being the oppressor, or being oppressed.  All the great novels in both genres have at their core a Character striving for Self-Determination.

Both genres define the "end" of the story as the point where the freedom to choose a path through life has been achieved.

Freedom of that kind is the definition of "being adult."

The five year old dreams of being allowed to "stay up all night" or "go to bed when I want to."  But once mature, and having done that a while in college, it is revealed not to be "freedom" at all, but irresponsible.  Maturity brings behavior altered by the perception that true Freedom is defined by discharging responsibilities.  One must sleep to perform well the next day.

Human Happiness is inextricably bound to Freedom.

Apparently, humans can't achieve Happiness without Freedom -- but it may be possible that Freedom itself does not induce happiness.  There might be such a thing as too much freedom, a kind of directionless life that stalls into misery for lack of responsibilities.

They say that the elderly need to feel needed (i.e. be responsible for someone or something), to survive the longest possible time.

Perhaps the HEA is the Freedom To Choose One's Own Responsibilities?

They say there is a price to Freedom, and that every generation must fight for it.

Yet, even a Slave (as in a person who is owned, bred, worked by someone else) can be Happy.

How can a Slave be happy without freedom?  Even from Biblical times, some have preferred to remain slaves even when given their freedom.  There is even a ceremony involving piercing the ear to make a person who chooses to remain a slave (when they don't have to) into a permanent slave.  That is a FREE choice, and could lead to an HEA for that Soul.

Perhaps Freedom is a matter of the Soul.  If the Soul is free to grow, mature, become better integrated with the Body, achieve the purpose of that Soul's incarnation, then being technically enslaved would not inhibit happiness.

But being abused (beaten, tortured, raped, whipped) would prevent most Souls from achieving the purpose of their incarnation.

So, Freedom may not be Happiness -- but most likely you can't achieve Happiness without some Freedom.  The type of freedom may differ from Character to Character and historical epoch to epoch, but some sort of Freedom is an essential ingredient in the HEA.

Now we come to the intersection between Romance and Science Fiction.  Freedom.

The typical Action/Adventure Science Fiction novel involves the Main Character facing some sort of threat, usually physical, which he or she averts by heroic action.  Space Wars, Invasions, Revolts, being lost in space or slogging across an Alien Planet -- the stakes are always somehow involved in keeping or achieving freedom of choice.  Faster Than Light travel is the freedom to colonize other planets.

Humans regard any threat to freedom as a menace.

In Romance, the Main Character faces some sort of restriction in choice of Mate -- being the Ward of a step-parent, being the heir who has to marry for peace for the Kingdom, the chosen is unsuitable (or downright Alien) or just no Mate material in sight anywhere, something prevents the freedom to choose a Mate, and heroism must avert that threat.  Happiness is consumption of that Mating by free will choice.

Then there are the Romances where it is not so much the free Will as the Body's Lust that makes the choice.  And there are the Science Fiction novels where the Hero is sent on a mission he would rather avoid.

All of these typically popular novels lead to an ending where Freedom To Choose is secured.

We all know that the price of freedom is mortal combat, and each generation must win their own freedom.  Freedom does not come as a gift.  It can't be inherited.  It must be bought by the sweat of your own brow.

Freedom to choose your Destiny is the essence of both genres. 

If you choose wrong, you may not be headed for an HEA but only an HFN.

The Science Fiction Romance writer has a unique opportunity to explain the HEA to the general readership as winning the fight for freedom - freedom from oppressive dictatorships, from government, from nosey neighbors, social peers, even parents and cultural traditions such as Religions enforced by government authority.

It can't be freedom from Authority, per se, because that is the goal of the villains.  It has to be freedom to choose which Authority to ally with -- not subject or subordinate to.  Equal-to-Equal is a Free relationship -- not subjugation.

As we noted in the brief over-view of Jack Campbell's universe of military science fiction stories, ...

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/08/reviews-38-jack-campbell-genesis-fleet.html

...his Hero (who lives in two epochs of history of the galaxy separated by many years of cold sleep), Black Jack Geary, makes his early reputation fighting for the freedom of the new human colony he has just moved to.  He has a wife and child there, a commitment to a brighter future, and is living an HEA when a militaristic colony attempts a "takeover" of other colonies.

He fights for his family's life, prospects, and mostly freedom.

All military science fiction can be reduced to the simplistic term of a "fight for freedom."  What differs is the opponent, and the freedom to do what, and the tools the Hero fights with.  It doesn't have to be guns and space ships.  It can be sensors, analytic machinery, or even basic test tubes and centrifuges.

All Romance can be reduced to the simplistic term of a "fight for freedom" to choose one's own Mate.

Both genres are about striving for Freedom, and though it might be decades and many novels until it is achieved, Freedom is the Ending.

Freedom lasts through one generation's lifetime - then must be fought for again.

The fight for Freedom seems to be intrinsic in human nature.  And our thesis is that "human" is defined as a Soul welded to a Body (which definition could work just fine for Aliens who are not technically human).

That vision of human nature explains clearly why "freedom" must be fought for in each generation --  from the Body's point of view, the Soul is doing a "hostile takeover" of the Body, while from the Soul's point of view, the Body is striving to enslave the Soul.

All good fiction written by and for humans is driven by Characters with an Internal Conflict (Soul-Body conflict) generating the Story, which is projected or mirrored in an External Conflict generating the Plot.

Humanity's real life, real world, existence is the constant struggle between the animal nature of the Body and the spiritual nature of the Soul.

That struggle is the source for War -- from domestic disputes to Nuclear Holocaust, War is the animal need for dominance pitted against the Soul's need for Freedom.

Happiness, insofar as living humans can experience it, is at the balance point between the animal body and the spiritual soul.

Once achieved, that balance can be stabilized by a Soul Mate whose strengths complement rather than duplicate the strengths of the partner.  The child creates the very stable, very strong, triangle -- which is stronger than any mere pair can be.

Depict the steps necessary to stabilize a Character at that balance point between Freedom and Responsibility (Uranus and Saturn), and you may be able to lead skeptical Readers to suspend disbelief in the HEA long enough to enjoy some happiness.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com