Theme-Symbolism Integration Part 3 Why Do We Cry At Weddings Part 2 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Symbolism Integration
Part 3
Why Do We Cry At Weddings Part 2
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Symbolism
Bride&Groom Pray Before Ceremony
Without Seeing Each Other

Previous Parts of Theme-Symbolism Integration
PART 1
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/theme-symbolism-integration-part-1-you.html

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

And this is Part 3 of Theme-Symbolism Integration - as well as Part 2 of Why We Cry At Weddings.

It is said that laughter is a response to pain, the edge of the zone of pain, the prospect of pain -- a tickle is a sensation that can escalate into pain, but doesn't, yet it sets the nerves on fire and we laugh, giggle, flinch away just as if it were pain.

Emotional pain works the same way -- the tickle of the edge of a painful emotion sizzles through the nerves and jerks out a bark of laughter. 

Like a sneeze, laughter is a reflex: the nerves fire, the muscles respond, on a sliding scale of intensity.

Last week, we discussed Vulnerability -- how a writer does not need to understand precisely where their reader is vulnerable to evoke emotion in the reader, but a writer needs to understand the condition of vulnerability. 

A tickle on a vulnerable spot can be experienced as pain. 

"Salt in an open wound" is an example of that.  Ordinarily, our skin doesn't respond much to salt -- though enough salt on the skin for long enough dehydrates and puckers the skin.  Scrape the skin a little, then trickle salty sweat over the raw spot and OUCH!

The most vulnerable spot people today have in common is, I think, the knotted ball of symbolism that grows out of Religion (all of them; not any particular one). 

Bride Praying Before Ceremony

Religious people are viewed as stupid, or at least uneducated, and who wants to be viewed that way?  So we have a lot of people who seriously believe in God, but disavow all Religion because Religious people are stupid.  Some of these have convinced themselves that they don't believe in God, even though they do.  Some accept the idea of Souls and Soul Mates, but not God. 

We seem to be in an epoch of human history where our penetration of understanding of Nature, of Stars, and Planets, Galaxies and Particles, Dark Matter, Strings, and even Life On Other Planets, is finally becoming common knowledge.

In general, even just a High School education exposes people to the miracles of genetics, neurology, disease treatments and even cures based on our understanding of nerve cells, and the brain as a whole.

Even Sanity is coming under scientific scrutiny.  Out of body experiences can be explained by brain activity.  Many severe psychological conditions can be treated by daily medication, and more miracles are in the works.

We can solve anything.  We are just animals with a little more brain matter than most. 

In many ways that is a very comforting thought, and it leads to clear positions on various difficult matters such as Abortion, Death Penalty Crimes, the morality of War, and how to perform Charitable Deeds (or not).  The list of today's dilemmas seems endless, and most of them are easily resolved once you understand the world in terms of the human brain's electrochemical base.

You don't need God to get married, or have children -- in whichever order you choose.

Even people who go to Church a few dozen times a year to salute the Unknowable Infinite still live their everyday life in a totally explicable Knowable world.

We rely on that scientific view of reality, base all our decisions and actions on it, and feel confident that we know what we're doing as responsible adults. 

Saturn rules Science.

Neptune rules Romance.

Saturn rules bones.

Neptune rules the Soul.

Bones exist - we know that.  Souls do not exist -- we're pretty sure of that.


Yet we search for, and often find and marry, our Soul Mate.

When we fall in love, we FEEL a new sensation on a vulnerable part of the psyche -- it is a loss of virginity, a new sensation, a new set of nerves connecting and sizzling with a message.

Pain and Pleasure are the same thing -- nerves stimulated in a pattern.  One we flinch away from and try to avoid; the other we pursue and try to repeat. 

Where we are vulnerable and tender, very faint stimuli register as intense.  Where we are calloused from repeated stimulation, even the most intense stimuli are barely noticeable.

As physical creatures, we seek stimulation as validation of our existence, of life itself.  Experiencing a response to stimulus is essential to our well-being.

The louder the music (however pleasurable), the faster it deafens (callouses) you. 

Sex works like that.  The more frequent and unrestrained the sex, the more intensity you need in order to feel it. 

Taste works like that.  The spicier the food you regularly eat, the more spice you need to taste anything at all. 

Smell works like that.  If there's a bad smell in your house, you get used to it and your best friend won't tell you how your clothes stink.  You wouldn't believe it, anyway.

What you are used to becomes imperceptible -- yet we seek perception. 

The term is "Jaded Palate" -- if you have a jaded palate, even good things don't seem noticeable.

So how do we, as writers, sneak around to the back door of our readers' Soul and tickle them? 

The main tool we use to get through our reader's thick callouses and pierce their Souls with emotions they can not name is Symbolism.

But randomly chosen symbols will not add up to a story.

Working against each other, randomly chosen symbols produce an undifferentiated fog of gray.

Choosing symbols specifically to explicate a particular Theme produces sharp contrasts, black and white, yellow and red, green and orange.  Emotions work just like colors. 

Armenian Couple Crowned & Blessed

There are Seven Colors in the Rainbow -- and Seven Primary Emotions.

The writer's creative medium is not words, not computer word processing, and not even imagery or poetry -- the writer's creative medium is Emotion.

Naturally, there's a lot of argument over classifying human emotion! 

In early 2014, The Atlantic published this article headlined:
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/new-research-says-there-are-only-four-emotions/283560/

-----------quote-------
New Research Says There Are Only Four Emotions

Conventional scientific understanding is that there are six, but new research suggests there may only be happy, sad, afraid/surprised, and angry/disgusted.

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

This theory is in contravention to the accepted model of 6 Primary Emotions: happy, surprised, afraid, disgusted, angry, and sad. 

There is a more classic list of 7 Basic Emotions -- Anger, Contempt, Fear, Disgust, Happiness, Sadness and Surprise.

In 2012, Discover Magazine carried a story about defining humanity's 7 primal emotions by studying rats and making them laugh.

http://discovermagazine.com/2012/may/11-jaak-panksepp-rat-tickler-found-humans-7-primal-emotions

---------quote from Discover article------------
Since the 1960s, first at Bowling Green State University and later at Washington State University, Panksepp has charted seven networks of emotion in the brain: SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, LUST, CARE, PANIC/GRIEF, and PLAY. He spells them in all caps because they are so fundamental, he says, that they have similar functions across species, from people to cats to, yes, rats.

Panksepp’s work has led him to conclude that basic emotion emerges not from the cerebral cortex, associated with complex thought in humans, but from deep, ancient brain structures, including the amygdala and the hypothalamus. Those findings may show how talk therapy can filter down from the cortex to alter the recesses of the mind. But Panksepp says his real goal is pushing cures up from below. His first therapeutic effort will use deep brain stimulation in the ancient neural networks he has charted to counteract depression. Panksepp recently sat down with DISCOVER executive editor ?Pamela Weintraub at the magazine’s offices in New York City to explain his iconoclastic take on emotion. His new book, The Archaeology of Mind: ?Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotion, will be published in July.
------------end quote----------

See?  Just understand the brain, and you are master of life, the universe, and everything.

There really is nothing else.  Right? 

We can research, re-invent and re-define our Primary or Primal Emotions, and re-arrange ourselves and our lives any way we want.  A little electrical stimulus fixes everything.

These articles on the brain and emotions make perfect sense to us.  What more do you need to know? 
So now you know, can you explain why you cry at weddings? 

If Grief is a Primal Emotion, then it's obvious why we cry at Funerals, isn't it?  Grief is personal, and composed of feeling sorry for oneself at the same time as feeling what it is like to be the person whose life has ended.  How will your life end?  Is there any meaning to anything we do?

Clearly grief is uncomplicated and thus Primal.

Notice the absence of LOVE as a Primal emotion.  Is that absence congruent with your model of reality? 

Now look at this Kabbalah inspired article on the 7 Primary Emotions
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/277116/jewish/Introduction.htm

---------quote-----------
The seven emotional attributes are:

• Chesed - Loving-kindness
  Week 1 of the Omer
• Gevurah -- Justice and discipline
  Week 2 of the Omer
• Tiferet - Harmony, compassion
  Week 3 of the Omer
• Netzach - Endurance
  Week 4 of the Omer
• Hod - Humility
  Week 5 of the Omer
• Yesod - Bonding
  Week 6 of the Omer
• Malchut - Sovereignty, leadership
  Week 7 of the Omer

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

Note how each of the 7 Primary Emotions listed on that page is composed of "cross-terms" as they say in math, or harmonics as they say in Astrology, or how an artist mixes colors to make new hues, making a palate of 49 Emotions which these exercises are designed to mature.

With maturity of these emotional states, the corresponding negative emotions cited in scientific articles are absorbed and dissipated by the light of these powerful emotions.  One's internal emotional climate shifts -- yes, climate change -- and the world seems brighter.  And the burst of tears at weddings becomes more explicable, perceptible as a glimpse of something too bright to look at directly. 

Click the links on the page to find the mixtures, which make it easier to sort out the melange of emotions causing that Cry At The Wedding outburst. 

Note this list starts with LOVE.

It starts with Loving-Kindness.

What does it feel like when someone looks at you with Loving-Kindness in their eyes?  I know you've seen it, but have you ever named it out loud?

Also note that LOVE is a component of every one of the other 6 emotions in the list. 

This 49-element model of human emotion uses LOVE as the power-source behind all emotion. 

You can't act in Justice without Love, and so on.  Love is the primary component, the origin and the source powering all others. But look at what "all others" includes -- but most especially does not include in this list of 7 Primary Emotions that combine to drive the human spirit.

Also note Grief is not on the list of 49.  Nor Fear.  This 7-Emotion paradigm depicts a totally different Reality than any of the other lists of primary emotions.

So think hard.  Is this portrait of Human Emotion more akin to your own internal primary emotions?  Does this depict your reality, or the reality you glimpse at the moment you burst into tears at a Wedding?


You may want to buy the following book which explains (though that's not what it was written for) how to create plot-events or symbols from these abstraction emotions. 

In this book:
 http://store.chabad.org/product.asp?Product=bk-mlc-counteng
Which you can also buy on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Counting-Omer-Simon-Jacobson/dp/188658723X/

...each of the 49 individual Emotions discussed comes with a do-it-today exercise that is a challenge to your ordinary way of looking at the world.  These exercises, done in this sequence, strip calluses and leave vulnerability. 

To find out when the Omer is counted, search the App store (iPhone or iPad, probably Android too) for Omer.  Or the Android store.  There are lots of free apps, and some with in-app purchases.  An app usually uses your phone's local time to alert you to the day of the Omer being counted.

Starting with Passover and going 49 days to The Feast of Weeks, each day contains a plot-twist, and each annual repetition is no repetition at all, but rather a unique experience in learning about Emotion. 

You've heard the term "Emotional Intelligence?"  This exercise is preparation for an Emotional Intelligence test. 

There is a mystical (Kabbalah) tie between the day of the Lunar calendar and the action suggested in the exercises.  The idea is that doing that particular exercise on that specific day amplifies the effect the action has on your Emotional Intelligence in a way that doing it at another time would not have. 

The greater your emotional intelligence, the more effective you can be as a writer orchestrating emotional responses in your readers by using concrete plot-actions coupled with symbolism.

With that understanding grasped, let's get back to Weddings as a plot-Event.

As previously noted, the Romance part of a character's story is generally over at the Proposal.

But sometimes the hottest Romances start with a Wedding scene for mutual friend or relatives where the couple first meets -- during or after one of those Crying At A Wedding moments.

Eyes swimming, they see each other through rose-colored tears -- all the sharp edges and harsh lines of character flaws blurred out, and Loving Kindness sweeps them off their feet.

Now why do we understand the Crying At A Wedding moment to be a natural prelude to meeting a Soul Mate? 

If you've never seen it happen, never heard of it happening to anyone you know, still you find it an acceptable postulate to kick off a Relationship driven story.

Another good moment to start a Romance is at a Funeral -- during or after the crying, and desperately trying not to cry scene.

Likewise, there are meetings over a parent's death-bed, in a Court Room awaiting a death sentence, at the scene of a car accident, by the ambulances in front of a house going up in flames, amid the rubble of an earthquake or bombing in a war. 

These are moments of peak emotion, moments when the whole nervous system is in fear-fight-flight mode, constant orientation response mode.

These are not normal, everyday, get groceries and pick up the kids from school moments. 

The emotional peaking stretches the old emotional scars and calluses that ordinarily cover up our emotions and blunt the ability to respond to minor incoming stimuli.

 
These are moments of vulnerability when we can let another person "in" and give of ourselves in ways we ordinarily do not.  Connections can be made at such moments where the cracks in our emotional armor are spread wide.

Emotions welling up can crack that shell from the inside and leave sensitive surfaces exposed, vulnerable.

That happens at Weddings, and other Life Event Ceremonies.  Retirement ceremonies work.  Presidential Inaugural, or swearing in ceremonies. 

But just feeling emotion welling up doesn't cause that very odd, very peculiar and distinctive flash of tears common to the "Crying At A Wedding" moment.

Commonly, the tears well at the moment Bride or Groom says "I do" (or whatever they've written).

Or at the giving of the token (symbolism) - traditionally a ring.

Or at the first kiss -- which is likely not the very first, but is the first as a married couple.

The tears burn up out of the eyes at the moment recognized as "Everything Just Changed."

This is the moment the Future morphs, partly because of what the couple did and partly because you recognized the shift in Reality. 

We live in a state of taking things "for granted" -- of relying on assumptions.  We understand science, we understand ourselves as mortal animals governed by a complex brain - and that's it.

We just can't handle all the variables necessary to envision reality on many levels, extending along many axes, beyond infinity.  It's too much.  We can't work the problems of our lives with too much information.

So we cut down on our perceptions, hide behind emotional callus, and won't admit there is anything there that we are not feeling the presence of.

In these peak moments of life, though, the callus cracks, stretches open and exposes the tender flesh that can feel the "salt" -- the foreign substance -- hear the faint whisper of mystical Presence -- smell the whiff of the Garden of Eden -- taste mana. 

I'm using Biblical references because most readers will understand them.  But this ultimate truth perception-shift happens for everyone of every faith (atheist, too). 

You can use the Wedding Tears as a symbol to move your readers because it is common across all belief systems.

It is a moment in which some people experience confirmation that their Beliefs are true, not beliefs at all but really True-Truth, and that is astonishing and too painful to encompass.  Such a discovery is always followed by flinching away from it -- as if it were painful.

It is also a moment in which some people experience confrontation with the knowledge that everything they believe about Reality just is not true -- or not as complete a picture of Reality as they thought.

Either way, the callus cracks, like the clouds parting and letting sunlight into a dark day -- and we wince just as when sudden light in darkness causes a reflex to close our eyelids.

It is a "pull the rug out from under you" moment, a moment of astonishment when nothing you thought you could depend on actually works.

It is the moment between being shot and noticing that you're dead.

It occurs at that point where pleasure and pain join, where the scream of pain and the shout of laughter are indistinguishable. 

The physical nerves "white-out" and something else continues to perceive .... something.  It isn't the universe as you know it, but the universe unfiltered by your defending calluses.

There is the Uncertainty Principle -- where the observer changes the observed by the simple act of observing.  By noticing that The Future Changed at the moment two souls join, you have changed The Future.

Hence weddings must have Witnesses.  The act of Witnessing is the act of changing.

And that is not possible in the World As We Know It.  Just because I see you does not change you. 

Yet in some other Reality -- yes, it is true.  Two Souls mate and the Third Soul composed of the Two United is changed by the observation of the Witnesses.  So who witnesses can change the course of the marriage.  "I danced at your wedding," makes a difference.

Reality itself warps during these Life Event moments (and with our population in the billions, there are lots of such Events every moment the Earth turns).  Reality warps again as the moments are witnessed.

You've heard the phrase, "Don't look! You can't un-see this!" -- often applied to a gruesome accident or an atrocity. 

Once you have witnessed something, it becomes a part of you and can change the direction of your life.  Hence WITSEC - the Witness Protection Program.  You see it; you testify; you can not be the same person anymore or they will kill you for testifying.

The same is true of Weddings.  The knowledge that you are no longer the same person causes the tears -- grief for who you used to be, joy for all the new possibilities in your life, and maybe Love of God or whatever you deem the source of that searing brightness that lances into your vulnerable cracks.

 
Is it God?  Do you need to postulate that God Is Real or to admit the Soul is Real to understand why you cry at weddings? No, you don't have to.  It is one explanation that works fairly well for some people, but not the only one that covers all the observations.

Few come away from a crying jag at a wedding convinced that God came down and married these two Souls.  In fact, most people would think you crazy for saying that. 

Most people can point to sentimental reasons, memories of other weddings, realization of hopes for the new couple, poignant sorrow at the failure of their own marriage, cynical foreknowledge that this new couple will likewise part, and a piercing hope that, "No, not this time!"

So many mixed emotions clashing with each other create quite enough almost-pain to account for the buckets of tears shed at weddings down the ages.

Compare the tears shed at a Wedding with the burst of tears when you witness (even via TV) a heroic act, or a life sacrificed to save another, perhaps a helpless baby.  Compare the Wedding sensation with witnessing an Event such as how the USA responded during the 9/11 Attacks, or someone's worthy deed being given a worthy award.

Consider any movie or novel that you cried through the last ten minutes or twenty pages.  Finally, finally it all comes out right in the end and your faith in human nature is justified.

Each of these moments speaks in symbols, in traditions, in customs, in passing the torch to the next generation and finding them worthy - in symbols that affirm the continuity of human civilization.

Those symbols, arranged just-so, blindside us with a stab of hot emotion too searing to bear for more than an instant.  Just as when the dentist drills into a tooth and your eye waters, something from outside your callused shell breaks through to exposed nerve and you FEEL it.

That "It" that you feel may as well not exist in your life at all before and after that moment, just like the dentist's drill is always in his office but doesn't always hurt you.

What is that "It?"  What is it that comes through your cracks and hits a nerve in those peak moments of life?

Those who are bored at Weddings, or do not cry or feel deeply (maybe only come to get drunk?) may simply be too afraid of the nascent pain to let their calluses crack open even a little, to let that sensation happen to them. 

Naming that "It" gives you a Theme.  Shrouding that "It" in symbolism gives you a way of explaining what that "It" is to your reader, who may be one of those bored at a wedding type people. 

We see that "It" as "light" -- the kind of Light by which the Third Eye sees.  The wince away from that Light at Weddings is the Third Eyelid squinching shut after Witnessing the souls joined.

The "light" is so bright, the flash through our cracks so sudden, we can't See what's behind it, what's causing it, what's emitting that Light.  To us, it is only "It." 

  

"It" is amorphous.  To make a novel out of "It" manifesting in this world, you have to Name it. 

Your thesis for your theme is a Worldbuilding element.  In this World where these Characters live, Magic is Real, Evil is Palpable and Profitable, Good Always Wins (or Loses?).  Those are themes you never state in words, but mold into the fabric of your World. 

What is the "It" that intrudes at Life Ceremony Moments? Name that "It" and the name becomes your Theme.  "This is a World where "It" is (God, Devil, Demons, Angels, Aliens).  Each choice is a statement about that theme, and dictates the symbols that will be meaningful to your readers.  


Weddings have symbols and traditions for a reason. 

Use that reason even when you have your couple write their own vows and create new traditions.  Every tradition was done for the first time sometime.  Not all first time traditions last more than a generation.









One way to research current traditions is to search Pinterest for Wedding, Bride, Bride and Groom, and related keywords you can think of.  Wedding Planners and Photographers and Caterers are using Pinterest to present their services, and encourage innovative Weddings that won't bore the guests.  You can use their posted images to develop the symbolism in which to discuss your Theme.

 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Symbolism Integration Part 2 Why Do We Cry At Weddings Part 1 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Symbolism Integration
Part 2
Why Do We Cry At Weddings?
Part 1
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Symbolism Integration Part 1 is here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/theme-symbolism-integration-part-1-you.html

So why do you cry at Weddings?

At what point in the ceremony are you most prone to burst into tears, or at  least gasp and blink and wish you'd remembered to bring tissues?

Does the point where you burst into sniffles signify a different reason for the emotional upwelling? 

Do you get that same feeling just looking at the pictures later? 

If you, the Romance writer, have no answer to that question, "Why?" then how can you portray, depict or evoke that crucial moment for your readers?

Do you fall back on cliche, or tell not show and just say "she sniffled" or had to leave because she was sobbing out loud? 

Have you ever examined that inner-emotional-WHAM that fills your eyes to the brim, in step by step analytical detail so that you know all the elements that compose that sob/gasp/whoom!

Have you ever experienced that kind of blast/scream of mysterious emotion in any other context?

Can you summon it at will, turn it this way and that, and dissect it so you can recreate it for readers who have never experienced it? 
 

Yes, some of your readers have never felt that exquisite pain/pleasure of crying at a wedding.

Some just suffer through weddings and consider it boring, never responding to the emotion of the moment.  Some are too overwhelmed by their own resentment or jealousy that someone else is getting married and they have no chance of ever having that moment.  Some are too overwrought by responsibility for "everything to go right" and can't feel the moment.  Some have only been to weddings where they were bridesmaids in pinching shoes and "the wrong color" for their body type. 

But do you know that flashing-burst of emotion intimately?  Do you feel it only at weddings?  Or does it come at other moments? 

Is the "at weddings" flash the same as that which comes over you on other occasions?  Is there something similar tying together the "at weddings" tears with tears that flood over you at other kinds of moments? 

If you can catalog, then contrast/compare the wash of tears brought on by various triggers and put words to the cause, to what your heart-of-hearts is responding to and why it is tender in that area, then you have nailed the ultimate theme of all Romance, or at the very least of all Soul-Mate based Romance. 

Here is a recent article on "triggers" and how society is conditioning young people to handle triggers:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/

Does that spark of emotion akin to that at weddings just blindside you from time to time, get pushed aside because sobbing out loud would be inappropriate or embarrassing, and then disappear onto a dusty shelf in your mind, not cataloged by any keyword?

Do you pay attention to the whipsaw emotional responses you have as you wander through life?  If so, chances are good you are a writer -- even if you've never written anything other than your signature.

Classical Romance generally finishes off before the Wedding, perhaps at the proposal or the acceptance, but rarely continues into the practicality of planning a personal extravaganza.  Sometimes, driving off to Las Vegas for an Elvis Presley wedding makes a good Ending.  But mostly, the "romance" part is over when practical, real life begins. 

Astrologically, Neptune rules Romance -- the blurry veils that soften reality and make everything beautiful.  Saturn rules practicality, things like the Wedding budget, choice of menu, caterer, venue, how many guests you can invite to your Wedding, and so on. 

Wedding Planners make their living off the fact that the Romance is still smothering the Couple's ability to manage mundane details in a business-like manner.  The Wedding Planner's job is to create a cloud of dreamy beauty to cushion and waft the couple into a heavenly honeymoon. 

Meanwhile, the prospective in-laws are trying to repair the errors they made at their weddings by imposing their dreams on the new couple.

Criss-crossing currents of fury/hope/grim-determination (not to mention pinching shoes) often interfere with Event Planning.  So people today try to out-source it all by hiring a professional to put on a pageant where the Couple can be the stars of the show.

 One of the things Wedding Planners do is create that sentimental moment where there is not a dry eye in the house.  That's showmanship, it is show-don't-tell, and it is symbolism.  The key to invoking the most powerful symbolism is theme.

Here are some previous posts where we have explored how to use Theme and Symbolism and other techniques that build your fictional world around creating such a powerful moment your reader cries -- just as they would at a wedding. 

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/index-to-theme-plot-integration.html

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding.html

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

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

To create such a tear jerker moment in your fictional wedding, you may not need to understand what is going on inside you when you burst-into-tears, and try to push down and contain your response.  But some writers do need to articulate the unnameable in order to nail it effectively.

If you have experienced that wordless sensation that causes the flood of tears, you can very likely replicate it for many of your readers.  But if you have just used the material (the symbolism) that jerks your tears, you may leave a good part of your readership cold because you did not include the symbols that represent their vulnerable spot.

Your vulnerable spot does not have to be the same as their vulnerable spot if you understand vulnerability in general. 

Most people do not understand why they feel the way they do -- and of course there is no one answer that explains any particular emotion in everyone.

Emotion is in that realm beyond language.

The alphabet of emotion is symbolism.

Neptune rules symbolism, and Saturn & Mercury rule vocabulary definitions.

Neptune rules Romance, and Romance speaks in symbols. 

Hence weddings fraught with traditional symbolism hit vulnerable spots in almost everyone -- but the spot and the vulnerability are different for each person.

The response of crying at a wedding is idiosyncratic, individualistic, and simply will not be crammed into a word.  There is no language to that gut-grunting-screech of a cry.

If the triggers are so diverse, and the inner-meaning so idiosyncratic, then why is the experience so wide-spread, so common?

Crying at a wedding isn't something that happens once in a lifetime.  Some people cry at every wedding.  Some people experience that wham of emotion under other circumstances besides weddings.  Baby Showers?  Christenings? And of course funerals, but those tears feel different.

So next week we'll look at this blindsiding gut-punch emotional flash in more clinical detail to  understand what you, as a writer, can do with it.

Meanwhile, go watch a movie that makes you cry, hit pause and feel that feeling.  Notice what it is doing inside you.  Watch for similar responses you have to commercials, to cute-animals on Facebook, to your kids' graduation, and even to funerals, or Award Ceremonies.  Tributes to fallen heroes.  Whatever stirs and moves you with a surprise flash and upwelling eyes.  

What is going on inside you when you cry at the sight of something external to you? 

You will find the images in this post on my Pinterest collection Entertainment and Information, with links to the Wedding Planners and other contractors a Bride needs.
https://www.pinterest.com/AmbrovZeor/entertainment-information-sources/

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Symbolism Integration Part 1: You Can't Fight City Hall by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Symbolism Integration
Part 1
You Can't Fight City Hall
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous post on Symbolism:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/communicating-in-symbols.html

Is fighting City Hall romantic?  You bet it is! 

But first I want to point you to a short post by Margaret L. Carter here on Alien Romance.  She surveys the effect of going back in Time by watching very old TV Series and how those series depict characters.

The dissonance she refers to measures the sudden change in social norms.  It's too sudden for humans to adjust without psychological stress, according to Alvin Toffler in FUTURE SHOCK change in social norms.  I think we are still in the midst of that change, and therefore Romance Writers can leverage the chaos into massive commercial success bigger than mere destruction-derby, action, raw sex, or violence.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/08/values-dissonance.html

So let's journey back in time, then apply what we can learn.

One of the hottest hunks of an era was the guy who brought down the mob-corruption in Chicago when the mob had total control of "City Hall."  And the actor who portrayed that sexiest guy was likewise a heart stealing, larger than life, ultimate target for any woman worth her salt.

Here is an Amazon Video page with some of the titles available for a refresher course in that era.


The Untouchables Instant Video

And here is a Kevin Costner remake of that story:

The background theme in the mob story is "corruption."  Corruption is the way to "do business" and/or "Corruption is Dishonorable" and/or "Corruption is a figment of the imagination of those who want to control you."

The themes of Corruption are a theme-bundle, a set of independent but related themes that can be used to drive the stories of a whole set of characters who are in external conflict (plot), but each learning different lessons from being opposed.

Outside of a mere dictionary, the term "corruption" will be defined in a myriad different ways.  "This is corrupt."  No, nonono! "THAT is corrupt!"  "No actually neither is corruption at all." 

"Corruption" is a term with a huge, negative semantic loading (like EVIL, and we all admire the kickass Heroine who fights EVIL and protects our world from invasion and domination by Evil), but unlike Evil Corruption doesn't doesn't come in "Black" vs. "White." 

So with the shift of Generations, as time marches on, we see our very language morphing, words taking on new connotations, new definitions, and being used in new ways. 

Compare that Kevin Costner remake of The Untouchables with the earlier version from 1959 and watch that difference:




Now, consider "Corruption" in the abstract.  The concept lends itself handily to Thematic Statement -- what particular action in which situation actually equals "corruption" and what action does not qualify.  This is potent stuff, and crazy-sexy stuff, too because it makes or breaks Relationships. 

A woman looks for a "strong" man, a man who will stand for what she believes in, fight to the death to protect her and his children, never break his promises. 

Marriages founder on such broken promises, even if "Oh, that's not what I meant" comes into play when accused of breaking a marriage vow.

You see this argument unfolding in today's headlines, all the dodging and weaving to redefine what an oath actually means, what the US Constitution actually means (nevermind meant long ago) and what that has to do with "reality." 

Nobody knows how to resolve such an argument.  The internal parameters are fuzzy, foggy, blurred, and there's no concrete definition of what's right and what's wrong, nevermind what's legal and what's illegal.

This befuddlement affects people of different ages differently and thus your Target Audience is divided by age group.  To capture more than one age-group, you need characters of different ages bespeaking the attitudes and values of their own generation.

Remember how we broke down the Generations among your target audience according to what Sign of the Zodiac Pluto was in at their birth? 
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html

---------quote from that Part 6-----------
Gen Y came of age just as the possibility of video games emerged, and the home computer became financially feasible.

PLUTO IN SCORPIO kids -- only 10 years worth of kids -- grew up with computers in GRAMMAR SCHOOL classrooms and at home and became the market for the most violent video games. Pluto rules Scorpio, the Natural 8th House - when Pluto was in Scorpio it was its most POWERFUL. For the 1/12th of those kids born with Pluto in Scorpio in their own 8th House, Pluto issues are likely to rule the whole life.

There was a huge baby boom in the 1990's. Though it's only a 10 year span, 1985-1995 saw an unusual increase in the demographic significance of that generation who are now entering college and the lesser educated workforce.

That Pluto in Scorpio generation turned out the most young voters ever in this previous Presidential election, and you've all seen their vehemence (power) in political rallies (both sides of the issues!)

The generation reared on the most violent video games is determined to assert their right to their inheritance, their rightful possession by dint of the fact that they exist.

Employers have already noted that the current 18-20 year olds they hire are mortally offended by any workplace rule that prohibits texting during work hours. Employers have no right to restrict behavior or communication during work hours. (I saw a study about that posted online, and saw several interviews about it on TV, but didn't save any references, sorry. I may have referred to it in a previous post here.)

The Pluto in Scorpio generation (only 10 years long) has passed on their taste for video games to the Pluto in Sagittarius generation.

PLUTO IN SAGITTARIUS, 1995 - 2008, are still just babies, and their buying power is still mostly controlled by Gen Y parents.

But for us, it's interesting to note the success of TWILIGHT with the Pluto in Sagittarius teens.

Gen X acquired a real taste for the teen-vampire novel. The sex appeal of Vampires with the edgy connotations of risking death is soooo PLUTO!

YA shelves filled with vampires in the 1980's, which naturally gave rise to BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER a little later, and all sorts of vampire spinoffs for older people.

TWILIGHT and the urban-fantasy vision of reality as a thin film over a seething cauldron of evil is intensely popular with Pluto in Scorpio AND Pluto in Sagittarius.

Noel Tyl, an astrologer's astrologer, has identified the axis in the natal chart that describes one's deepest anxieties, fears, nightmares, repressed fears -- the kind of deep, inarticulate fears that rule our behavior and which we rationalize.

That axis is the 3rd House/ 9th House axis.

The Natural 3rd House is Gemini, ruled by Mercury (thought, communication, short trips, fast moves, and also indecisiveness and restlessness).

The Natural 9th House is Sagittarius, ruled by Jupiter, and all about Philosophy, Courts, Social Justice, the generous and magnanimous King, the kindness of the world, success by expansion, growth. Sagittarius is all about open-honesty as the adjacent sign of Scorpio is all about hidden realities. Sag is long trips, foreign countries, PUBLISHING!!!

Kids with Pluto in Sagittarius are the teens who gobbled up Harry Potter (foreign published) when they were 9 years old, TWILIGHT etc, in their teens. TWILIGHT treats the darker (Pluto is "dark") aspects of the vampire as "out there" and mostly ignorable, while the vampires that are "in here" are trustworthy and above all that dark stuff - probably. In TWILIGHT the nasty part is "hidden" (Pluto).

Marketers have noted a leveling off of the growth of computer games sales (not shrinking, just not growing as fast as there are no more Pluto in Scorpio kids coming to buying age)

The trend in films toward ever more exaggerated violence and destruction, spectacle for its own sake, (TRANSFORMERS?) pleasures and amuses Pluto in Scorpio folks in some way that mystifies the Pluto in Leo folks. And I don't think it's just because the Pluto in Leo folks are older. I think it's because the Pluto in Leo folks have an Amusement Button that's configured differently.

When the Pluto in Sagittarius kids are 18-25, what films will they be taking their girlfriends to? What games will they spend their money on? What will amuse them life-long? What songs will they popularize? (already, I see lyrics changing)

The dark, ugly subject matter of the first wave of popularized rap is giving way to something else, but it's gradual.

If the Pluto in Scorpio generation pushed the violence in video games beyond all previous taboos, what taboo will the Pluto in Sagittarius generation (the obese kid generation -- Jupiter, ruler of Sagittarius is famous for obesity, the JOLLY FAT WOMAN image is usually Jupiter on the Ascendant) what taboo will this new generation expand out of all sense and reason? What will obsess them as violence and destruction obsesses Pluto in Scorpio?
----------end quote-------

Yes, it's a long post, and that is a tiny slice out of the middle.  It was posted in 2009.

I still think understanding the generations, and the attitudes they have toward Government (what it should be used for, what it can do effectively, what it must never do, etc) is a vital key for writers who are aiming at a particular Demographic which is seen by publishers or producers as currently gobbling up a certain type of fiction.

The full effect of a generational obsession is not seen until that generation has a) money they earned, and b) power over others (e.g. getting promotions to management positions).  The effect is not seen in politics unless there is a significant portion of the total population born in that time-span.

For commercial purposes, industry (Public Relations Firms mostly) have named the generations and assigned them boundaries in years, then attempted to parse the statistics of the mass-behavior of these people.

Forbes Magazine did an article in July 2014 examining the breakdown of generations, and highlighting individual biographies to illustrate a point.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/samanthasharf/2014/07/30/the-recession-generation-how-millennials-are-changing-money-management-forever/

And it contains the key graphic writers can gain from, a chart defining the generations in percent of population, and their behavior at different life-stages.

 

Communicating in Symbols

In my previous blog entry here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-cb-radio-come-on-back.html
I mentioned the process of acquiring language rather than learning it, which sparked a lively exchange in the comments all about communication which is so much the heart and soul of every romance.

On http://editingcircle.blogspot.com/2009/03/in-beginning.html , the comments on my entry about the art and craft of constructing the beginning, opening, and narrative hook of an SF Romance novel got into a discussion of the Protagonist's Goal at the opening and how that determines the ending.

In one of the comments, I pointed out how it is possible to telegraph the Protag's goal to the reader without the Protag actually knowing what his/her goal is. That is the goal that will be achieved at the ending in order to resolve the conflict, but the protagonist might have his/her conscious mind focused on a different goal, or even on avoiding the actual goal.

When you open a story with the Protag declaring (aloud or within) that under no circumstances will they do this or that -- you are telegraphing to the reader that in the end, they will do it (and might not even consciously know they have done it), and there will be unforeseeable (suspenseful) consequences.

The adamant declaration that an action is out of bounds is likely to be taken as true by the reader if the declaration comes in the Middle (low point - major defeat - certain failure looms). But if that declaration is on page one, or in chapter 1, the reader knows this is blind stubbornness that must be overcome, not an expression of a true point of Honor that must be lived up to.

How can this be? The same words on page one mean the opposite of what they would mean on page 200?

Symbolism.

The novel's structure is what it is (varying across genres, but even in new genres settling into what the readers enjoy most). The novel is an artform in which the very structure telegraphs a philosophical position, a theme. And that structure telegraphs the theme of the genre by symbolically representing some well-known pattern of real life.

Remember on Buffy The Vampire Slayer -- they would often refer to "oh, this is the sad part" or "oh, this is the happy part?" Kids learn early that novels and stories have "parts" and even before the kid has lived long enough to know life has parts, they understand "parts."

Writers use the novel structure to SYMBOLIZE those "parts" of life that bespeak the theme of the genre. Break the genre pattern and you have a very difficult commercial sell, or you have a NEW GENRE.

Stories as a whole are SYMBOLS, and the 3 points, Beginning, Middle, End, are SYMBOLS for "life" - the shape of some part of real life is symbolized by that sequence.

The location in the novel structure of the story-event symbolizes the real meaning of the story-event, regardless of the words (which are also symbols.) People, readers in particular, believe the message in the symbolic placement of the dialog about say, goals or values, over and above the message in the event itself. "I won't" means one thing on the first page, and the opposite on page 200.

Writers communicate with Readers in symbolism.

Structure is symbolism too.

Art is symbolism.

Oddly, algebra and higher math rely on SYMBOLISM.

Science relies on Math, and Math is symbolism.

Religion teaches and conveys values, behaviors, and runs the gamut of all philosophies, invades every aspect of life, and speaks to our deepest mind, heart and soul -- in symbolism.

Great films speak to us in symbolism.

Film uses a set of symbols established and evolved only in the last century or so, but now part of our culture. For example, in THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, the Fashion Industry symbolizes everyone's job in every industry.

Written language is symbolism. Alphabets are symbols -- the more so in pictographic writing.

What about spoken language? Conversation? Dialogue?

Yep. Symbolism. "The map is not the territory." But in the realm of psychological and philosophical symbolism used by novelists, there is a magical link between the symbol and the territory. Powerful change can be wrought in a reader who responds to the symbols in a story because in magic, the map is the territory, and storytelling is magic.

Also by manipulating the symbols, by manipulating the map, we can learn new things about the territory. We can learn about hard, objective reality by manipulating fictional symbols.

Our brains are not digital. We're analogue creatures.

So, to interface with reality, we have to build, in our minds, an analogue of reality, a set of symbols that seems to "work just like" the reality outside us. I've borrowed from E. E. Smith's LENSMAN SERIES the phrase Visualization of the Macrocosmic All to refer to that internal analogue of reality we all build.

In the Lensman Series, the aliens called Arisians were energy beings, pure thought, whose main hobby was visualizing the macrocosmic all. By perfecting that Visualization, they could predict events thousands of years hence, and had done so in their age old battle against Boskone, manipulating human history and breeding the special humans called Lensmen who had an ironclad ethical code built into their genes. The Arisians were the Good Guys (just read to find out what Boskone was!) and the Arisians perfected the symbolic analogue of reality as no human ever can, not even the Lensmen.

Science calls this symbolic analogue a MODEL.

A novel (or feature film or TV Show) is a model of a universe built by the writer to be analogous to your personal small corner of reality so that it will speak to you on a deep, inner level, stir emotions you never knew yourself capable of, and let you walk a mile in some character's moccasins, learning lessons you may never need in real life.

Science does most of it's work on models - trying to "model" reality in such a way that the model behaves like the reality it represents. Get the model right, and you can predict what some small corner of reality will do under stress -- just as the Arisians did in fiction for the entirety of all creation.

This is what the Treasury department is trying to do now with "stress testing" big Wall Street firms. They will run a computerized, mathematical model of the economy crashing further, input the firm's current financial data, and the model will produce a graph showing at what point the firm would have to declare bankruptcy. (OK, it's not THAT simple; but that's the idea).

The touchstone of science is predictability -- the model of reality should replicate the behavior of reality so well that when you make a change in the model that has never been made in reality, what the model does will be exactly what reality would do if hit with that change.

The failure of the levees under the impact of Katrina was a failure of the engineering MODEL, as well as politics that prevented spending on upgrading the levees before Katrina. To date, the levees haven't been upgraded to withstand what a Katrina type storm making it all the way to land might deliver, according to some models of the atmosphere.

If this sounds a bit like voodoo dolls, think really hard about that. Math is the cornerstone of magic, too.

Our political decisions are made by politicians under the impact of public opinion which is guided by the media -- and the media speaks to us in symbols such as dead bodies floating in the exact same New Orleans streets many of us had visited.

Madison Avenue advertising firms have spent hundreds of millions of dollars studying how large populations respond to symbols -- what makes you buy this toothpaste or that car? (OK, sex. The hope of romance. But what else?)

Today, I saw an item on CNBC about the dire state of the advertising industry, and learned a new buzzword from this science of manipulating behavior with symbols. "Influence Consumer" -- that's you, the consumer of products designed to influence your behavior, the person at whom this multi-million dollar research is aimed.

How much have you spent learning to resist that well financed force?

Trust me. You haven't a chance against this kind of force unless you invest in mastering symbolism and how it works inside you, personally.

Our largest decisions as a civilization are rooted in models made of symbols and communicated to us in symbols -- dramatized by symbols. We understand drama better than expository lumps, which is why so many "news" shows are nothing but gossip about individuals.

Remember Ross Perot running for President - the man who coined the term "giant sucking sound" to designate the loss of jobs that N.A.F.T.A. would bring - and how resoundingly he lost that election?

Remember also his speeches being expository lumps illustrated with mathematical graphs in color - like a Corporate meeting, not a political speech fraught with symbolic rhetoric. Contrast with Obama's speaking style. See how the public handles symbolism. Remember that when you set out to write a popular novel about love.

Modeling is a process which is currently in progress with our atmosphere. There are competing models, some predicting global warming, some not, some predicting a cooling cycle. These are computerized mathematical models made of symbols connected in ways which are mostly theory, or even untested hypothesis.

The disagreement over global warming is not just political, but also represents two groups of scientists, each emotionally invested in their own carefully built "model," trying to communicate with each other -- over the barrier of the press, politicians and the general public in between them.

This generates screaming and yelling not unlike what we discussed about Twitter as portrayed on YouTube, and for pretty much the same reasons pointed out in the comments to that post. The participants are not talking about the same subject and they aren't "in the conversation."

All our lives and our grandchildren's lives are at stake in who's right about which model replicates the Earth's Atmosphere correctly -- and these groups of scientists are not able to communicate properly despite having symbol-sets in common. Because of all the people in between them, they can't argue until they figure out which Model replicates the atmosphere. They can only take sides and yell.

Their MODELS OF REALITY don't match -- so they are shouting at each other like the Tweeters on Twitter. They're using the same symbols, the same math, but their models of the rest of the universe besides the atmosphere don't match so they can't communicate about the atmosphere.

Or take another example, Kaynesian vs Freidman economic theories -- each mathematically MODELED from reality to represent the behavior of large economic systems.

NEW KAYNESIAN theory http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/NewKeynesianEconomics.html

MILTON FREIDMAN's Nobel winning theory of economics
http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/friedman.htm

These two MODELS of how an economy functions are currently duking it out for control of the US government and the world.

The fights over Pres. Obama's 2010 budget and the stimulus packages are huge, prominent and dire examples of how mere mathematical SYMBOLISM controls our lives on a very intimate level. The two articles I referenced are couched in words, "made-simple" articles, but the textbooks about these theories contain a lot of math, graphs, statistics.

Which model is the correct model? They are mutually exclusive, aren't they? It is a zero sum game, isn't it? One works and the other doesn't, right?

In childhood, each of us creates an internal symbol set, pretty much originally, and on our own. Forever more, those symbols represent TRUTH for us.

Symbols (from kid book illustrations of Moses parting the Red Sea to novels full of words without illustrations) can bypass intellect and connect directly with our emotions. Isn't that ironic -- Symbolism, the most powerful tool of the "coldest" discipline, Mathematics, is actually the most powerful tool of the "hottest" discipline, rhetoric, President Obama's forte.

Semantics is the study of the emotional loading of words -- and of course words aren't the "thing" they represent, "the map is not the territory;" words are symbols.

Words have power. But some of the power they have is invested in them by the child first ACQUIRING them. Think about the comments on my blog entry of last week:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-cb-radio-come-on-back.html

Children store the newly acquired word in context associated with the sound or written symbol, smells, colors, possibly the perfume of the woman bending over them and pointing out the word under the picture of Moses.

Forever more, that word MEANS "right." Or possibly "fear" if the teacher was harsh. Or whatever the context suggests. That emotion will always rise on hearing that word, though adults can cram the emotion back down into the subconscious and pretend it isn't there - even believe it isn't there. Nevertheless, it's there and it can manifest in a person's choices and actions.

Given this idiosyncratic response to symbols, the random way we acquire those responses, and the writer's absolute necessity of choosing the most effective symbols to communicate a story to the widest possible audience, how do you choose symbols for your Chapter One?

Your own internal symbols won't mean the same thing to your readers, especially if you are aiming this story at a broad readership.

Perhaps the most prominent symbolic utterance pivotal to all Romance sub-genres is the phrase, "I love you."

You would think everyone knows what that means. Well, we all do know. The problem is, we all know something different about that phrase than other people know.

We each create a mental model of the universe around us, a Visualization of the Macrocosmic All, and having invested so much of our Self into creating that internal model, we cherish that model as we cherish our own souls.

Therefore, we subsequently take any incoming information, any event or tidbit of fact, and try to fit the new bit into our Model.

If the bit does not fit -- we discard the bit not the model. The model we have created is our own self on a very deep level. A threat to our model of reality is a threat to something more precious than our very life. That model we create is our main symbol of reality

"The Levees will hold!" we scream. Or "The Economy Is Sound!"

Adherents of Friedman say, "Sound Economies Hold Recessions! It's Good!" and Keynsians scream back, "Recessions Must Be Controlled, Damped Down, Eliminated By Government Action because that's what government is for!"

"There is no Global Warming!"

Whatever does not fit our model of reality, we reject. That's how we decide what's right or wrong, what's true or false, and it's also how we decide "Does she/he love me?" We take all the little, tiny gestures, expressions, tones of voice, and fit them into our model, and feel either love or rejection according to how well the bits fit into our model of how a lover behaves.

We'd throw our lover away long before we'd ever consider modifying our model of the universe.

That fact is so universal that you can code it into the symbolism of a novel in any genre. It is symbolized by the moment of epiphany when the Protagonist has been beaten down, destroyed, (this is usually the 3/4 point of the novel, what I call "the worm turns" point). At that moment when the protagonist's model of the universe has been totally smashed, he/she can reach down inside and create a NEW model of the universe more congruent with actual reality. Or at least the reality the reader/viewer prefers.

Readers live for experiencing that moment of epiphany with a protagonist. Make it deliver everything you've promised up to that point, and readers will memorize your byline.

Readers love watching a protagonist they really like (SAVE THE CAT!) change their model of reality into something closer to the reader's own model (but not the other way around). It's so much less painful to watch a fictional character change their model of the universe than it is to change your own.

The new model of reality that your protagonist adopts must fit into your reader's personal model of reality. That fit is at the core of the concept "plausible." We believe plausible things because they fit our model. We reject "implausible" things because they don't fit our model.

If you want the reader to believe six impossible things before breakfast, this is the level of your fictional construct where you do that. Plausibility has everything to do with that symbolic level of the model of reality. I've discussed this on this blog in relationship to "background" and "worldbuilding."

Plausible means "fits my model" -- and "my model" is a symbol composed of symbols, each of which has an idiosyncratic meaning.

So what's a writer to do?

In any Romance based story, the writer has to show-don't-tell "What does she see in him?" and "What does he see in her?" These are the key questions that, when answered in the right symbolism, trigger a cascade of great emotions in the reader. Real lovers see each others' models of the universe.

Where do you look to find the most universal symbols that carry the most widely understood semantic loadings?

Think about it. The letters you are reading in this message are symbols that we agree on. People with different accents might make different sounds out of these letters, but still get the gist of what I'm saying.

I might make typos, or (heaven forefend!) actually misspell a word, but you could still make out the gist of what I'm saying.

We have a symbol system and a language built from it in common.

Likewise with the pictorial images, the symbols such as Moses parting the Red Sea become common symbols among us.

Oh, yes, it's in the Bible of course -- but that's just words. The SYMBOL, the image that speaks across cultural gulfs is something like Charlton Heston in the Cecil B. DeMille blockbuster remake of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, Oct 5, 1956. (correlate that date with advances in Keynsian economic theory and ponder it all from a futurologist's point of view). It's the visual image that has such incredible power. That's why kid's Bible Study books have pictures.

Anne Phyllis Pinzow,
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/6/40b/553
a professional reporter who moonlights in film, says of Heston in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS:
------------
What they could do with creative editing for a few thousand dollars can only just be matched by millions in technology now. Him standing there, both hands on the staff in front of him, spreading his arms proclaiming to the Hebrews to see the power of G-d. WOW Star Wars looks like shlock compared to it. Not because it's shlock but because it looks like a comic book come to life, or really high-tech animation. Yes, there was animation in The Ten Commandments, and yes, some very sophisticated editing for the time. But when watching The Ten Commandments, audiences looked at that and felt it WAS REAL. THIS ACTUALLY WAS HAPPENING. I don't think anyone could ever say that about Star Wars. Also, this was just 11 years after the Holocaust, and 8 years after the founding of Israel. In a very huge sense, the movie was symbolic of what was actually, really happening at that time. Take that in your symbolisim and smoke it.
--------------

I couldn't have put it better. Note how Pinzow draws the parallel between what was happening in the world, and the images that rocked the entertainment industry. SYMBOLISM. Something currently real reduced to symbolism -- taken from something far older, something studied by most of the intended audience in words, cold print or static pictures -- suddenly turned into a Big Screen Reality. The impact was epic for the intended audience of 1956.

That's an important part -- INTENDED AUDIENCE. Wouldn't play so well in Moslem countries.

Images, pictures, become a language of their own. One symbol goes with another -- but not with a third because the third is in a different "language."

Our cultures and societies and civilizations have ordered and organized our symbol sets -- and we've inculcated those subconscious symbols into our children for generations.

The writer, on a very mundane level, belongs to such a society or culture, and can speak in their symbols natively -- because the writer (being of an artistic temperment to begin with) has ACQUIRED the image-symbolic language of the writer's own society.

A drastic change in that acquired symbol set (video games) has made the current generation gap much wider than previous ones.

If Jung was right, there may be some universal (primal) human symbols that communicate across civilization boundaries.

But today, the USA is such an un-mixed stew pot of cultures that we don't have a "universal" symbolism in which to speak to each other any more. The generation gap is only one cultural gap dividing us.

It seems to me that one of the important tasks of the splintering and reforming Romance genre is to re-establish a common language of symbolism in which we can speak to each other in the USA, and across the world, about the things that matter most - love, aspirations, nesting, building a life for our children, all the ingredients in the HEA ending -- the part of the story the Romance writer does not write but symbolizes for the reader.

Love is universal. It is our job, as writers, and maybe especially SF Romance writers, to establish a common symbol system in which future generations will be able to communicate - even on Twitter.

Analyze what deMille did with TEN COMMANDMENTS -- think about what Moses parting the Sea means to you today and drop a comment about what tidbits like WWII are floating around in our collective consciousness that could be dramatized to become a symbol of love across all our communication gaps.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/