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

Putting Violence In Its Place

Part 2

The Three Second Rule

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

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

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

Astrology posts are indexed here:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

----quote----

"It makes women feel gorgeous"

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Soul Mates and the HEA Real or Fantasy - Part 5 - Domestic Violence During the HEA

Soul Mates and the HEA Real or Fantasy

Part 5

Domestic Violence During the HEA 

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

Part 1
http://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 2 starts with a list of related posts and the Index post to the series of Believing in the Happily Ever After.

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

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

In Part 4 of this series, we discussed the Body and Soul and which gets to enjoy sex, and what happens when one is denied.

There is a theory of psychology that says we treat our intimate partner (spouse, S.O.) the way we treat ourselves inside ourselves (conscious to subconscious or Body to Soul.)  If you constantly win by kicking your Soul in the teeth and planting your Body's Boot on your Soul's neck, you won't win.

That is, if your Body always "wins" or your Soul always "gives in to" your Body, you will be headed for recurring bouts of misery.  If your Soul always wins, you will be miserable.  Balance is the actual goal, not "winning."

How we treat ourselves, inside ourselves, is shaped by how we were raised, and how the parent treats the infant, toddler, etc.  We learn "who" we are, and what we're worth by how our parent (nurturing figure) treats us.

A 1983 self-help book changed a lot of lives and impressed the parents (or grandparents) of the readers you are working to entertain.  It is full of plot twists and hints on how to create natural intimate dialogue of a couple that is headed for a Happily Ever After ending.

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



Here is a short video explaining the origin of Internal Conflict expressed as Domestic Disputes -- or even Domestic Violence.



In that video, you can see how internal violence happens.  The Soul has one goal, the Body has another, totally incompatible goal, and the Soul is the interloper, the invader of the Body's world, thus set up to be the loser.

The Soul is the "weaker" of the two, and the human animal being the Primate that it is, attacks weakness and interlopers.  See some studies on the basic animal primate behavior -- primates form tribes, group hunt, and do most of the social oriented things humans do, including creating a "pecking order" and accepting an Alpha Male who is the most vicious bully of the bunch and chases rivals away.

The basic animal human is a bully.  Connection to the human Soul mitigates that behavior.  More than simply resisting the behavior of bullying, the Soul-Connected Alpha feels less Bodily Need to bully.  The stronger the soul-connection, the more tranquil the behavior.  The stronger the soul-connection, the harder it is to anger, shame, or insult this individual.

But how does someone achieve this inner tranquility that projects into domestic tranquility in which to raise tranquil children to be tranquil adults?

Are you forever consigned to raging combat in life just because you were raised in a dysfunctional home?  Or can you resolve at least some of the issues, defuse your "buttons" and strengthen your connection to your Soul?

The resolution of this kind of internal conflict is to "find common ground" between Body and Soul -- and transform that common element by fire into occupying both the world of the Soul and the world of the Body.

In the video's illustrative case, the common element is Olive Oil, and fire lights up both the material and spiritual planes of existence, joining them, forging a coaxial cable of 7 separate fibers between the Soul and the Body.

We laid thousands of miles of fiber optic cable across the USA a few decades ago, and then recession came, the companies collapsed, ownership changed hands, and for years after that the fiber optic cable lay there, dark.  Now it is all lit, carrying signal to the maximum capacity, and we are frantically laying more cable while mastering wireless signallng.

Fiber optic cable is designed to transmit light modulated (like radio signals are modulated) to carry signal.  We talked about the Body/Soul model using Signal/Noise ratio analogy in Part 4.  Think about the Soul-Body connection as a bundle of fibers designed to carry a "signal" which is analogous to "light" in a fiber-optic cable.

Many traditions use candle lighting in powerful ceremonies.  The creation of light in this physical world, light the body sees by, causes "light" to occur on the plane where the Soul is.  The Soul and the Body can communicate by this mutual light.

The Couple living on into their Happily Ever After is not without their domestic disputes, screaming fights, retaliatory practical jokes, and other violent interactions.  They may not be totally without pure Monkey Sex, or rough sex (usually laughing hysterically all the way), but they will never be without communication.

At every interaction, each Body will be relaying messages from its Soul to the Soul of the other -- wide open, free flowing, communication.

With each encounter, the Soul Mates will joust with each other to spur the "lighting" of more Soul-fire-fibers connecting Soul to Body.  Each encounter will increase the strength of the bond between Body and Soul.

The strength of that Body-Soul bond is what we identify as Strength of Character, slow to anger, slow to take offense, level headed in an emergency, goal-focused, and always ready to defend a weaker person, not bully them.

The strong Character has unshakable self-esteem and the ability to transmit that, to light the Soul-Fire of their children.  Those children will never experience a need to bully other children.

This is a portrait of the Ideal Strong Character.  You can start a novel with a Character who is merely strong -- and over the course of the plot, teach him to light up more of his Bonding Fibers, connect better to the purified essence of himself, understand his Identity and thereby the identity of others.  He will come to the end of the novel with a clearly enhanced ability to secure his own Happily Ever After ending.

Readers who have any acquaintance with the unflappable adult, the secure adult, the tranquil adult personality will recognize how much improved this Character's chances are of living a full Happily Ever After life -- because they know people who are doing that.

People who are inwardly tranquil generate a tranquil environment around them, and enjoy it rather than get bored.  The strong character does not get bored!

 But most real people are somewhere in between, and do not make steady progress toward inner tranquility.  They leap forward a lot, sink back a bit, leap forward then sink back and sink back.  By staggering and lurching through life, they may get a little more tranquil over decades, but we'll still be between, with lots of room to grow.

Most of your readers, in real life, know real people who are slowly making progress toward become "cool" or well-balanced amidst the inner storms.

Show them a Character who has, despite all vicissitudes, made some visible progress as a result of the Events (Plot) of the novel, and they will be convinced this Character has a fair shot at an HEA.

To make this work as drama, the pair of Characters who are in turmoil, who have not found their Soul Mate yet, who are Soul Mates unrecognized, have to be embedded in an environment which contains two or more examples of Characters living actual HEA segments of their lives.

There should be Characters who are striving toward an HEA, maybe taking chancy shortcuts in life, and losing and losing, getting farther from Happiness and closer to despair.

The essence of Drama (Pluto transits bring Drama) is contrast.  Dramatic Events change the Characters but only if the Events find fertile soil within the  Character.

A Character's story happens when the Events in his Life do connect with his internal Conflict and cause him to change his Character (remembering Character is the Body/Soul Connection).

After the Events of the novel, the Character who is no longer changing is no longer subject material for another novel.  A Character who does not change because of the Events of the novel does not belong in the novel.

Stories are about change, what causes change, why this event caused that change, and is it an improvement?

Most real life lives have a period of 3-5 years when hammer blows of Events cause actual reshaping of Character - redefining Identity.  And then whatever the situation is after that, it does not change again, usually for 4 or 5 decades.  The Character may end up Happy or Miserable, but whatever prevails will persist creating at least the illusion of tranquility.

To find your Character's story, look for the big, pivotal moment that defines and directs change, a cauldron of events that purifies.  The Character's story happens where the Character changes, though the course of Life may change, too.  Story is about Character, and Character changes by becoming more or less connected between Body and Soul.  Plot happens to the Body.  Story happens to the Soul.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Defining Deviancy

In sociological discourse, we encounter the term "defining deviancy down." This phrase refers to behavior that used to be condemned but now is tolerated. It's an academic way of grumbling, "Society is going to the dogs." Profanity and obscenity in what used to be called "mixed company," for example. Open sale of sexually explicit literature. "Four-letter-words," extreme gore, and onscreen sex in movies. Going to houses of worship or expensive restaurants without wearing a coat and tie or a dress (as appropriate). (In my childhood, it was frowned upon for a girl or woman to shop at an upscale department story without dressing up.) For boys, wearing a T-shirt to school (the crisis in one episode of LEAVE IT TO BEAVER centered around this transgression); for girls, going to school in pants instead of skirts. Individuals of opposite sexes living together outside of marriage. Unmarried women becoming pregnant and having babies openly instead of hiding their condition in shame. Ubiquitous gun violence in the inner cities—in WEST SIDE STORY, the introduction of a gun into the feud between the rival gangs was framed as a shocking escalation of the conflict.

In many respects, however, we've defined "deviancy" upward since what some people nostalgically recall as the good old days of the 1950s. Smoking, for example. In my childhood, most adults smoked cigarettes, and they did it anytime almost everywhere. In grocery stores! At the doctor's office! Air pollution by big-engined, gas-guzzling cars that used to be status symbols is now disapproved of. So are the racial slurs often heard in casual conversation back then. Dogs nowadays don't run loose in our communities like Lassie and Lady (my main sources of information on dogs until my parents acquired one, who didn't act nearly so intelligent as Lady, the Tramp, and their friends). Leash laws didn't become widespread until my teens. Alleged humor based on physical abuse of women by men used to be common in the media. Ralph on THE HONEYMOONERS regularly threatened to hit his wife ("to the moon, Alice!"), though he never did so on screen, and in THE QUIET MAN, John Wayne spanked Maureen O'Hara in the middle of the road. Public intoxication, including drunk driving, was also casually treated as funny, as in many of P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves stories and the novels of Thorne Smith (author of TOPPER). Most adults seemed to regard bullying as a commonplace childhood rite of passage that kids had to learn to cope with, as long as it didn't cause significant injury. As far as safety features such as seat belts in cars were concerned, there was no law requiring passengers to wear them, because they didn't exist.

Where some societal changes are concerned, factions differ on whether they constitute improvement or deterioration. Some contemporary parents wouldn't think of letting their children visit friends, roam around the neighborhood, or ride a bus on their own at ages that were considered perfectly normal until recent decades. Conversely, if adults from the 1950s could witness today's trends, most of them would probably consider "helicopter parenting" harmful as well as ridiculous. Are the emergence of same-sex marriage, dual-career households, and legal access to abortion good or bad changes? The answer to that question depends on one's political philosophy. Does a decline in church and synagogue membership mean we've become a society of secularists and atheists, or does it simply mean that, because we no longer have so much social pressure to look "religious," for the most part only sincere believers join religious organizations? (C. S. Lewis noted that an alleged "decline" in chapel attendance among university students in fact reflected a sudden drop as soon as attendance became optional instead of compulsory.)

Whether you think current trends in behavior, customs, and morals are mainly positive or negative probably influences whether you believe Steven Pinker, for instance, is right or wrong when he claims in ENLIGHTENMENT NOW that we're living in the best of times rather than the worst.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Illusions of Safety

Last week, five people on the staff of our local newspaper were killed by a gunman who attacked their office because he had a long-standing grudge against the paper. (It's worth noting that the paper did not skip putting out a single issue.) Naturally, the rector of our church preached on the incident. He drew upon Psalm 30, which includes the beautiful verse, "Weeping may spend the night, but joy comes in the morning." To reach that epiphany, however, the psalmist has to recall a time when he felt confident in his security but then experienced the apparent loss of that safety and protection. Our rector talked about how we might have existed in a "bubble," thinking we were safe from such unpredictable mass violence, that it would never strike where we live. Now the bubble has been burst.

That reflection reminded me of what the media repeatedly told us after 9-11: "Everything has changed." Then and now, that remark brings to mind an essay by one of my favorite authors, C. S. Lewis, "On Living in an Atomic Age" (collected in the posthumous volume PRESENT CONCERNS). Lewis reminds us that such catastrophic events change nothing objectively. What has changed is our perception. That idea of safety was always an illusion. To the question, "How are we to live in an atomic age?" Lewis replies:

"'Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.' In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways."

As he says somewhere else (in THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS, maybe), the human death rate is 100 percent and cannot be increased or decreased. The bottom line is NOT that, knowing the inevitability of death, we should make ourselves miserable by brooding over our ultimate fate. It's one thing to take sensible precautions, quite another to live in fear. Just the opposite—we should live life abundantly. Lewis again:

"If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds."

Steven Pinker's two most recent books, THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE and ENLIGHTENMENT NOW, offer an antidote to the mistaken belief that we live in a uniquely, horribly violent age. Although Pinker and Lewis hold radically different world-views (Pinker is a secular humanist), both counsel against despair. Pinker demonstrates in exhaustive, rigorous detail that in most ways this is the best era in history in which to live—and not only in first-world countries. The instantaneous, global promulgation of news makes shocking, violent events loom larger in our minds than they would have for past generations. (But what's the alternative—to leave the public uninformed?)

We can deplore evils and work for solutions without losing our perspective.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Is the World Improving?

Psychologist Steven Pinker has just published a new book, ENLIGHTENMENT NOW, a follow-up to his 2011 book THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE: WHY VIOLENCE HAS DECLINED. In that earlier work, he demonstrated with page after page of hard facts that we're living in the least violent period in recorded history. ENLIGHTENMENT NOW, subtitled "The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress," expands that project to support the claim that human well-being has increased in virtually every measurable way since the dawn of the Enlightenment in the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries. (I have to confess that I bristled a bit at the title itself, since "Enlightenment," like "Renaissance," was a self-designated label meant to dismiss previous eras as centuries of benighted superstition, barbarism, and stagnation.) Contrary to the widespread belief that the world is going to Hell in a handbasket, according to Pinker this is the best time in history to be born, even in third-world nations. The headlines that make many people wonder, "Why is it getting so hot, and what are we doing in this handbasket?" represent, in Pinker's view, a distortion of the facts. (Why a handbasket, by the way? If all of us are in it collectively, wouldn't a bushel basket make more sense? Or a laundry basket? Of course, then we'd lose the alliteration.) Health, education, the spread of representative government, overall quality of life (evaluated by leisure time, household conveniences, access to information and entertainment, etc.), among many other metrics, have measurably improved. Fewer children die in childhood, fewer women die in giving birth, many diseases have been conquered or even eradicated, in the U.S. drug addiction and unwed teen pregnancy have decreased, fewer people worldwide live in extreme poverty, and in the developed world even the poorest possess wealth (in the form of clean running water, electricity, and other modern conveniences) that nobody could have at any price a couple of centuries ago. As for violence, Pinker refers in both books to what he calls "The Long Peace," the period since 1945 in which no major world powers have clashed head-on in war. What about the proxy wars such as the Korean and Vietnam conflicts? Faded away with the Cold War itself. Anarchy and bloody conflicts in third-world countries? While horrible present-day examples can easily be cited, the number of them has also decreased. Pinker also disputes, with supporting figures, the hype about "epidemics" of depression and suicide.

Despite Pinker's convincing array of statistics, readers may still find themselves protesting, "But—but—school shootings!" Why do we often have the impression that the condition of the world is getting worse when it's actually getting better?

For one thing, as we all know, "If it bleeds, it leads." News media report extraordinary, exciting events. Mass murder shocks us BECAUSE we're used to expecting our daily lives to remain peaceful and safe. Yet even the editorial page of our local paper recently noted that, although high-profile episodes of "rampage killings" (as Pinker labels them) seem to have occurred with alarming frequency lately, incidence of gun violence in general in the U.S. is down. We tend to be misled by the "availability heuristic" (things we've heard of or seen more frequently or recently, or that we find disturbing, loom large in our consciousness, appearing more common than they really are) and the "negativity bias" (we recall bad things more readily and vividly than good ones). Then there's the well-known confirmation bias, the inclination to notice facts in support of a predetermined position and ignore those that refute it. As for the actual numbers for mass murder, the stats for 2015 (the latest year for which he had data while writing the book) classify most rampage killings under the category of terrorism. The total number of deaths from "terrorism" in the U.S. in that year was 44, as compared to over 15,000 fatalities from other kinds of homicides and vastly more deaths from accidents (motor vehicle and other).

What does Pinker's thesis that the arc of history bends toward justice (and peace, health, and prosperity) imply for the prospect of encountering alien civilizations? Isaac Asimov believed we're in no danger of invasion from hostile extraterrestrials because any culture advanced enough to develop interstellar travel would have developed beyond violence and war. Pinker would probably agree. I'm still dubious of this position, considering that one of the most technologically advanced nations of the twentieth century perpetrated the Holocaust. Moral advancement may tend to grow in step with scientific development, but I don't see that trend as inevitable. The reason I think an alien invasion is unlikely is that any species capable of interstellar travel would have the intelligence and technological skills to get anything they need in much easier ways that crossing vast expanses of space to take over an already inhabited planet. I trust that any hypothetical aliens we eventually meet will be intelligent enough to realize, as most of the nations on Earth have, that trade and exchange of ideas trump genocidal conquest as methods of getting what they want from other sapient species. Much of science fiction has traditionally offered hope, for instance many of Robert Heinlein's novels. Today, amid the fashion for post-apocalyptic dystopias, we can still find optimistic fiction. S. M. Stirling's Emberverse, which begins with the downfall of civilization in DIES THE FIRE, focuses throughout the series on cooperation in rebuilding society rather than on the initial collapse.

While Pinker doesn't deny that our world is far from a utopian paradise, there's a lot of work yet to be done, and any mass murder rampage is one too many, this is fundamentally an optimistic book. It's a refreshing reminder that we're not necessarily doomed.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

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

Reviews 25
by

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The internal conflict generates the external conflict for your Character.

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 10: What Besides Sex&Violence Sells by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 10
What Besides Sex&Violence Sells
by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 
The previous parts of this series about Marketing Fiction In A Changing World can be found at:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/05/index-to-marketing-fiction-in-changing.html

We've discussed the definition of "strong characters" previously, establishing that the technical publisher's term "strong characters" does not mean muscles bulging or "kick ass heroine." 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/08/strong-character-defined-part-2.html

In the Depiction series we started in Part 1 with Depicting Power In Relationships.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-1-depicting-power-in.html

We tend to see our real-world surroundings in terms of "Power" -- such as "Does The Government Have The Power to XYZ?"  or "Does a President have the Power to ZYX?"  "Power To The People!" 

What do we really mean by the term "Power?"

The bald truth is most people, including voracious readers of Romance or Science Fiction Romance (or even Paranormal Romance) have no clue what the term "Power" means to them, except that they want it.

The writer's job as an artist is to DEPICT their reader's ordinary reality in such a way that it makes the Fantasy aspects of the story seem "realistic."  Not real, mind you, but realistic enough to believe for a little while. 

Then, as you've seen in the recent political campaigning, "connecting with" the audience is the big, fundamental, and essential avenue of communicating.

"Connecting" means letting the ideas being discussed come from a person the audience members can "identify with" -- or in some way see themselves in.

In a job interview scene, you want to write the dialogue (very off-the-nose style) in such a way that the interviewee presents him/herself as having something in common with the interviewer, so they communicate smoothly. 

Or if the applicant is to be rejected, you want to make it clear that the interviewee just can't connect with the interviewer/decision-maker.

This is important when talking to Human Resources interviewer, but it is crucial when talking to the person who will be the immediate superior depending on this new-hire to complete tasks expeditiously.

Note: this is VERY important in the case of a hit-man applying for a contract from a Mob Boss.

So there are ways to study political posturing to discover techniques to employ in creating all kinds of fictional scenes.

One of the most critical techniques to learn about dialogue is that all dialogue is mortal-combat -- a jousting match between two (or more) people looking for an advantage, doing one-upmanship, positioning themselves in the power-dynamic of a Relationship -- or establishing a Relationship where they can define their own position as "powerful."

In real life, that's not always true.  There are all kinds of speech used for all sorts of purposes, and some of them actually do lend themselves to becoming a Scene's core dialogue.  There is Intimacy that does not have a power-agenda.  And there is Intimacy that does have a power agenda. 

In general, only a few pages of a 400 page book can be devoted to non-power-agenda dialogue.  Dialogue (as opposed to real speech) has an underlying power agenda.

The reason for the exclusion of non-power agenda Dialogue is that (in general) it doesn't advance the Plot.  All the words, every one, on the page must advance the plot, advance the story, AND enhance the context the characters are living in (description, narrative, exposition are the tools for context enhancement).

Non-power-agenda Dialogue can advance the Story when it does not seem to advance the Plot. 

As we've discussed before, I am using the following definitions for story parts -- different writers use different terminology, but every professional fiction writer knows and manipulates these components.

Story is defined as the sequence of changes in the Character due to the impact of external Events (actions by an opponent).  Plot is defined as the sequence of Events. 

In other words, regardless of the ostensible subject matter, the conversation between characters that survives the final-cut is about Power. 

Two kinds of Power that the writer does not have to explain to a reader are Sex and Violence. 

They sell big, are considered the essential ingredients in a work intended for large and diverse audiences, because they need to explanation, and they need no translation for foreign audiences (Filmmakers aim at World Distribution, and sub-titles just don't cut it if they must contain polysyllabic words.)

So "action" sells because it is violence, and usually needs no translation.  You can depict action easily in Show Don't Tell. 

Think of the 1980's  film THE TERMINATOR.


The Terminator had plenty of Romance, as did the Indiana Jones films.  So did The African Queen which was much more Relationship driven than violence driven -- so they added leeches, mechanical breakdowns, and threats.

If you haven't seen those films, dig them up and watch them.  Streaming has become the most invaluable asset for a writer.  You can pick up long-standing trends, and analyze what does not change decade to decade.

So Romance was top of the heap in World War II movies made in the 1950's, but it was more expensive to depict airplanes in dog fights and big explosions.  Good closeups were cheaper.  The sex scenes were "go to black" -- they happened off-screen.

As technology advanced, audiences came to adore the explosions, destruction of cities, massive crashes, and other violence they had only been able to imagine.  More minutes of a film were devoted to destruction and violence than to the slow-sweet development of a Relationship before sex.

As social values shifted, sex (nude scenes) replaced "go to black."  Step by step, Romance took a back seat to Sex. 

Whatever wasn't a nude scene had to be a violence scene, and those films and novels that spent more time on sex and violence and less on "What she sees in him" made bigger profits -- because "What She Sees In Him" is very hard to translate across languages and cultures.

All the way to 2014, marketing machinery has caused writers and film makers to trim back the time spent on Relationship and include only nudity or violence (or sometimes both at once). 

Some very broad trends in the reader/viewer's community can be traced parallel to this trend in entertainment.

These are decade-long waves of change.  The point in discussing them here is to  pick up a trend and extrapolate it to The Next Big Thing.

So here's a list to consider and research on Netflix or Amazon Prime.

1) The disintegration of The Family (trace Leave It To Beaver and The Brady Bunch all the way to Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Lost)

2) The displacement of Loyalty, Patriotism and Honor with Betrayal, Draft-dodging, and Hatred of Parents.

3) The replacement of Character Arc expressed in Poetic Justice with Characters who just win and indulge their emotions (with sex or violence), mostly to just escape their fate.

These are 3 trends that depict the changes in the consumer's real world and are reflected in what those consumers (your market) enjoy in entertainment.

There are reasons for taste preferences in statistically large markets that can be most easily understood by writers via Astrology.  Here is the index post to all the Astrology Just For Writers series -

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

Astrology gives a handy way to capture the timing of generational shifts.  Marketers target people between certain ages because at those ages they tend to be more vulnerable to peer-pressure, sales pitches, and tricks of the Public Relations craft. 

That "certain age" lies between the advent of sexual awareness and mastery of the overwhelming emotions and physical demands of the body.  The demographic centers around about age 18, but spreads from 13 to 35, with decreasing gullibility after age 30 (after the first Saturn Return when Saturn (discipline) has been full experienced and internalized. 

As they say: Never trust anyone over 30 -- they might actually be able to think for themselves.  Wisdom sets in at 30.

In other words, at certain ages, humans tend to be better "Marks" for the grifter's tricks.  Public Relations is the grifter's art enhanced with mathematical precision. 

As entertainment producers discovered sales increased when sex&violence were ingredients, and followed the trend to making sex&violence the only ingredients, so too will they follow the trend to something that comes along and sells better.  Could easily be Romance again, with a new twist.

Keep in mind that it is to the advantage of Sellers to keep the Buyers immature and unable to discipline (Saturn) their own emotions (Moon, Venus) so that they will identify with characters who have no self-discipline who "model" impulse-buying and use the excuse "I couldn't help it" when failing to resist an emotion.

It is the hallmark of the teen years when sexuality kicks emotions into high gear that the teen's personal philosophy is founded on the conviction that the only right or wrong in the world is rooted in how you feel.  And we see that reflected in popular fiction -- especially Romance --- that there exists such a thing as an "irresistible" arousal.  And that is true for the immature.

Thus marketers have a vested interest in fostering the assumption of helplessness in the face of your emotions.  If they can induce in you a desire for something, you won't even try to resist because resistance is futile.

The writer's concept "strong character" means a Character whose character is "strong enough" to impose discipline on emotions, even raging arousal, and not succumb -- not even consider succumbing -- to an inappropriate impulse.

In fact, a fully mature human never even has an inappropriate impulse.  That is the Strongest of Strong Characters.  Such people do exist in real life, and every culture has a term for achieving that level of maturity and a theory about how to achieve it.  The achievement was once assumed to be a universal goal of all humanity and was lauded, applauded and rewarded with Rank and Power. 

In fact, the only humans trusted with Power over other humans were of fully mature, strong character.  Others who achieved Power without that Strength of Character we distrusted and rebelled against.

Thus Hollywood depicted Role Model characters, such as The Lone Ranger,

http://www.classicmedia.tv/pr/loneranger/art/LR_creed.jpg

who had achieved that ultimate strong-character position dealing kindly with people who did not have strong character and thus inspired a generation to emulate strength of character (even if they didn't have it).  It was an admired and achievable trait to be beyond temptation via the emotions.

See The Untouchables - Elliot Ness's take-down of the Chicago Mob by being incorruptable - beyond the temptation of money, and beyond the fear of being targeted by a hit man.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052522/combined

Or P.N. Elrod's brilliant The Vampire Files series.

The Vampire Files  Now is in audiobook, too.

Character Arc means the experiences that develop that kind of incorruptible strength of character -- all the way to the point where the enticing vision does not in any way arouse or entice.

We call that an old fashioned value.  So writing it into a Romance can be a radical departure.

Maybe we won't go all the way back to "go to black" for sex scenes - but maybe onward to less air-time (or page-words) spent on nude athletics and more spent on the complex and abstract reasons for accepting this person and rejecting that one according to the self-discipline exhibited by that person. 

This change will come from a book and/or film that just includes that ingredient among the sex&violence. 

So where do we look for this new ingredient that will out-sell sex&violence?

First we have to examine where sex and violence come from in our society, and what those two things represent artistically, then find what other elements exist in human experience that harmonize with them.

In the Astrology Just For Writers series, I pointed out how Astrology describes the relationship between sex, violence, and love.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

The sign Scorpio is Ruled By (or associated with) the planet (or whatever they are calling it now) Pluto.  Scorpio is the Natural 8th House which represents sexuality and death, as well as taxes and other-people's-money.  In other words, via the association of Scorpio with the 8th House, we learn the relationship between money and sex, and thus the reason why our Elected Politicians keep getting caught secretly (Scorpio and Pluto represent deep secrets which when revealed become scandals) having sexual affairs and questionable financial dealings. 

Our culture sees sex, violence, finance, Power Over Others, and secrecy as  separate things, as if you can have one without all the others. 

Scorpio Sun Sign is known for such intense privacy preferences that they are considered secretive.

Artists (such as writers) depicting this culture or marketing to this culture, can "see" (with the mind's eye and artist's understanding of poetic justice) that all these separate matters are the same thing.

Scorpio is raw, physical, animal sexuality, and also represents the deeper and more potent manifestations of Violence.  8th House is other people's Values or the Values of The Public.  And Values includes money, which means taxes if the topic is government or power-over-others. 

The current USA government policy is to use Taxes to shape the behavior of citizens.  We tax cigarettes to reduce smoking.  We tax gasoline to prevent driving so much.  This practice puts "Power" into the hands of the few -- the elected officials and bureaucrats who have climbed up the Civil Service ladder to gain decision making power in Agencies such as the IRS, NSA, EPA.

Those who make decisions governing your behavior, incentivizing healthy eating , or dis-incentivizing asocial behavior such as tax-dodging, have positions of Power.

If those individuals are individuals of Strong Character, they can't be bribed, just as Eliot Ness couldn't be bribed in The Untouchables.

And if they have Strong Character, they won't use their Power just to assuage their own emotions.  Say for example the emotion of Fear.  Tax Policy and EPA Regulations are Powers that can be used by those who fear global warming to assuage their fears by forcing people to stop doing what the Powerful believe causes global warming.

People driven by Fear can't be stopped by Facts. 

People driven by Greed (for money) can't be stopped by Facts.

So if one side of the global warming argument is driven by fear of global warming, and the other side is driven by greed for money (based on Fear of poverty?), it doesn't matter what the Facts actually are.  No fact will alter the behavior of either side because the behavior wasn't fact-based to begin with.

We all do this kind of disconnected thinking.  We all have an inner, emotional life that is fraught with Internal Conflict which drives our Story Arc.  That's why novels depicting an Internal Conflict are so vivid.

It doesn't matter nearly so much what the Internal Conflict of a novel-character is, the mere fact that it is an Internal Conflict establishes rapport with the reader.  A character who has an internal conflict that they "project" psychologically on their external world is a Real Person to a reader.

Thus if you are bringing a couple together where one is frantically working to stop global warming and the other is trying to stop the interference with his business by global warming fanatics, you capture the readers from both sides of the argument.

Most people don't know why they believe what they believe.  If your characters likewise don't know or care why they believe what they believe, and so are intransigent in their beliefs, you have a conflict that you must resolve in the end.

"To Agree to Disagree" is not a resolution of a conflict that can lead to a plausible HEA.

If this story is driven by sex and violence -- you will end up with one of this Couple murdering the other.

But if you make the story of the collision of a Believer with a Believer into a genuine Romance (Science Fictional or Paranormal) you another thematic dimension to the innate Sex&Violence collision of say Greenpeace with Whalers.

That thematic dimension is the core theme of all Romance in all sub-genres: Love Conquers All.

People driven by Fear (of Global Warming or Personal Poverty) who have the Power to make themselves feel safer can't be deterred by any arguments. 

Fear is overwhelming, primal, and even more irresistible than sexual enticement.  If these people (government officials or businessmen) have grown up convinced that emotions can not be resisted and had that proven by reading  stories about overwhelming sexuality, then they won't even try to master Fear.

But we have the theme of Love Conquers All.

Love Conquers Fear. 

Love Conquers Sex&Violence.

What's the difference between Sex and Love? 

Raw Sex which is the flipside of Violence is represented in Astrology by Scorpio and Pluto.

Love which is the flipside of Beauty is represented in Astrology by Libra and Taurus.  Venus rules both Libra and Taurus, and has many associations, all of them compatible with Romance which is best symbolized by Pisces ruled by Neptune.

Love is not Romance.  They are two different things, which is why we have so many "Honeymoon Is Over" stories of shattering divorces within the first 5 years of a marriage.  5 years about covers a Neptune or Pluto transit which define the epochs of our lives.

Likewise Love is not Sex.

Love is all about what you see (Libra, Natural Seventh House, Partners, the Public, open enemies) in (internal conflict) another person.  What you value (external conflict) (Taurus, Natural Second House, Money, Beauty, Moral Values) in another person grows out of that Love.

Love is all about what you are capable of perceiving -- not necessarily what is really there.

Love is Blind, as they say.  The symbol for Libra is Blind Justice holding her scales.  Being "blind" in the external eye allows "the sight" with the inner eye, allows seeing into other people.

So your job as a writer is to convince the reader that the reader is smarter than you are, and that the reader is able to see the true inside of at least one of the characters -- to see deeply and accurately enough into a Character to Love that character.

The easy way to do that is to create a Character who is ostensibly an adult but is emotionally immature enough to have no strength to overcome emotion such as Fear or Greed.  His own emotions have Power over him, and therefore anyone with Power over his emotions (of fear, greed, jealousy, etc) can force him to do their bidding even against his own will.

Remember, with Hypnosis, you can not get someone to jump off a roof and commit suicide -- but with control over his emotions, you can -- provided he has no control of his emotions.

The difficult part of telling such a Weak Character's story is to convince the reader that the experiences you put the Character through will cause the Character to strive for strength and thus to become a Strong Character.

Right now, Love doesn't "sell" very well without Sex&Violence added.  So many novels substitute sex and/or violence for studied exploration of the character's inner life.  This substitution makes it impossible to depict Poetic Justice.

Poetic Justice is the Plot Event that brings the reader's sense of right and wrong into alignment with the Character's resolution of the Character's internal conflict.

Poetic Justice is Poetic (a harmony) and Just (making things come out right). 

Poetic Justice is about the Beauty (Venus) of Justice (Jupiter).  The harmonizing element is Mercy.  Justice without Mercy is neither just nor poetic.  But Mercy without Justice creates co-dependence which is not Love and thus conquers nothing.

If you can depict Love conquering All, especially today's most potent Fears, without flinching from depicting those Fears, you may turn the tables on the Marketing decree that only Sex&Violence sells.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Soul Mate Characters: Heroic, Villainous, Mystical And Romantic

Before we get started on this huge, deep topic, let me just note I've put up an experimental blog listing the characters (one character per "post") in my most recent Sime~Gen Novel, The Farris Channel, Sime~Gen #12, with a quick reference about "who" they are in the story.  It's a blog so that people who are reading the (very large, character-rich) novel have a place to note things about the characters for themselves, and for potential fanfic writers who might want to explore the complex, offstage lives of the ancillary characters (as other Sime~Gen characters have been explored in fanfic).

The blog is:
 http://charactersinsimegen.blogspot.com/ 

Sometime next week (March 12-16, 2012) the audiobook of the first novel in Sime~Gen, House of Zeor, is slated to be released as audiobook from audible.com (on Amazon and iTunes etc) and so far the fans who have heard samples of Michael Spence's reading are absolutely thrilled with his rendition of the main characters in that novel, Heroic, Villainous and Mystical alike. 

While I've been working on the audiobook project (Molt Brother is out, City of a Million Legends is being recorded, and Michael is getting ready to start Unto Zeor, Forever), and thinking about characters and actor's renditions of characters, on Google+ I found the following link to a newspaper article being shared that made a big impression on me:

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/health/2011/12/violent_video_games_may_affect.html

It's about brain research chasing a link between violent video games and the behavior of children who grow up playing them.  It doesn't site conclusive evidence, but it's "hot pursuit" time in this area.

We all know the link between sexuality and violence, and how "dark" sex-based fiction can get especially when the Romance is left completely in the dust by mechanical sex scenes. 

I'm all for really good sex scenes, mind you, but they have to be essential to the theme, make a clear statement, and advance the plot swiftly while deepening the flow of story.  Good sex scenes are harder to write than good combat and violence scenes. Good sex is a form of communication, a language of love.  Substituting anatomy for announcements is weak writing. 

MY OPINION ON THAT ARTICLE: It's not "sports" or "videogames" that cause "violence" -- it's the enactment of the "zero sum game" model of reality.

A sex scene that's a "zero-sum-game" will be an announcement of aggression that will be an act of dominance and maybe violence. Do you only love and treasure what you dominate? ("Dominate" means to be able to "take away" (I have/ you don't zero-sum-game model) anything from possessions to self-esteem from another human being.) 

"Sportsmanship" used to include celebration that the other guy won, not you, and you didn't have less of anything because the other guy scored more points:  not less prestige, strutting rights, joy, or anything.  It wasn't a zero sum game even with rules and scores.

"It doesn't matter if you win or lose, it's how you play the game that counts." (Honor, integrity, fairness).  As society has evolved over the last few decades, we can see in our films and novels how that concept of sportsmanship became ironic, then ridiculous, and now isn't even said. 

Sports is about honor and heroism, about helping the fallen get up and go at it again, about breaking through your own inner, personal barriers and becoming a better person (and not on drugs) -- not better than some other person you "beat" but better than you, yourself were.  Sports is about excellence (as is Sime~Gen's House of Zeor) - it's about excelling your own personal-best, not about excelling someone else's personal best. 

It's not "sports" that's the problem in our current society; it's sanctioned viciousness.  Sports used to be an exercise in character development.  Now it's more like politics, an exercise in character debasement.  What you practice, you get better at. 

But that's the world we live in, isn't it?  The world of raising children by debasing their characters to where they only know how to "win" by debasing the character of others.

How many mothers out there ever even notice their kids staring at political ads?  How much do the kids understand?  What do they model from that?  How does that affect what they look for in a Soul Mate -- someone they can easily debase, or someone they will allow to debase them? 

MY OPINION: No, no, no! 

This world is made out of love for love, and because of love.  That's not my opinion.  It's my perception.  It's what I see when I look out of my eyes and assemble all the little pixel-dots and the black space around them (an image I used in a previous discussion here of a trilogy of historical romance novels set around 1050 C. E.) 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/02/research-plot-integration-in-historical.html

Character is one of the "filters" you use to "select" what is signal and what is noise in your life around you.  Your character is what selects what lights up the pixels that form your image of your life, and what you suppress or ignore.  These bits of information form a picture of the world around you that you can work with and within.

It's your character, and the assessment of the character of others that creates that picture of the world, your life, and your potential.

Ask most readers of Romance stories and you'll find that' it's character they respond to most.  If they can't relate to the main character, they just won't finish the book.  Romance books need "strong" characters -- characters with character.

You know, USA NETWORK's "characters welcome!" 

One of the things writers use to add "color" to characters is the techniques used to "reveal" their character strengths, weaknesses, and the identifying, individual quirks. 

When you weave all those character traits together, strength, weakness, quirks, you get a "strong" character, a character who doesn't change behavior or values in an emergency -- a character that's been built from childhood in a non-zero-sum-game world.  That's a character who has the "strength" to "give" himself - to sacrifice for the good of others.

The "strong" character will create a good cause, not just find one.  The "strong" character is the one who loses a child to a drunk-driver accident, and founds Alcoholics Anonymous or Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

The "weak" character is the one who loudly and publicly proclaims his "values" and "moral compass" and "leadership" and then, in any little emergency (unexpected event) throws all those values away in order to respond to the emergency.

Consider the classic "lifeboat" situation where say, 6 skinny people are huddled on a lifeboat tossed by high seas and a 7th very fat person is sinking the boat.  It's an emergency, so the 6 skinny people are therefore morally required to throw away the "Thou Shalt Not Commit Murder" commandment and toss the fat person overboard for the good of the majority. 

Those are 6  people of very weak character. 

If they were of strong character and normally held that murder was not something they would ever participate in, they would never consider tossing anyone overboard merely for their own survival. 

Those of strong character who believe that murder is wrong would never even consider murder in large groups like a mob.  The force of "mob psychology" and destructive frenzy explosively released in resentment simply leaves such a "strong character" cold.  A strong character standing in the midst of a mob that bursts into frenzy will simply edge to the rear and drift off down a side street.  She may then circle back, get help, and confront the mob's head end and try to stop the destruction.  But not with violence. 

We're not talking "army" here; the army does not murder, but can and does "kill" for the good of the group, which is completely sanctioned by the 10 Commandments.  Translations usually say "kill" but the actual text says "murder."  That's killing for personal gain, not self defense.  Soldiers don't set out to kill people, just to "neutralize" them -- make them stop destroying the soldier's own family and nation. 

That "Kill"/"Murder" distinction is one I use in the Sime~Gen novels because I thought about it very carefully and studied and learned.

Now why is it relevant to a writer creating a Romance story?  I mean most Romance doesn't involve killing or murder (though I do love a good detective novel with a hot romance driving the plot.)

It's relevant because "Values" has everything to do with "character strength" which is the lynchpin in the whole Soul Mate concept. 

Character is the connecting link because it is the one thing that you can "take with you" beyond this life.  What character strength you develop in this life will be there for you to retrieve (by repeating some experiences, sometimes vicariously by just reading a Romance story) once you reincarnate.  That's the theory anyway, and it turns up in so many theories of karma and reincarnation that I suspect it's real.  It certainly resonates with a majority of readers and forms the foundation of most fiction that doesn't even deal with the supernatural.

I use the idea of murder to measure character strength just as an illustration of the principle of what makes a "strong" character in the eyes of an editor. 

A strong character is one who stands up for what he/she believes in (whatever it is) and will put their life on the line, their life savings, or even the lives of their children. A strong character will risk the dangers of other people despising them because they hold to their Values even in an emergency. 

Values that have to be discarded in order to deal effectively with an emergency were never held to begin with, only espoused or given lip-service.  In emergencies, the real character becomes visible -- which is why most novels hurl the main character right into an emergency (trust me, a first date is an Emgergency!) 

Strong characters contain the potential for becoming Heroes and thus tend to die young or survive to ridiculously old ages. 

For you astrologers, that's a placement of Pluto in the natal chart signifying a life of having strength of character tested.  Usually that "test" is one period of 3-5 years of sheer-bloody-hell -- and then either a dramatic death or smooth sailing into really old age.  Many don't survive that test, but that doesn't mean they "failed" -- because the strength built in the testing period will still be there in their next life.

For MOTHERS - consider what that means in your infant, toddler, especially a venturesome son.  Strength of character from previous lives turns up in those fearless lunges into dangers the baby does not perceive.  The cowardice of the terrible-twos (and the fearless lunges into wild self-assertion) may be decoded into some idea of "who" this person you're raising really is, was, and will be.

Note, today Romance stories with second-marriages, and including young children, abound for a reason.  Sometimes a marriage happens for past-life reasons, and to bring to birth certain individuals who need different parenting than the birth parent can provide.  (not always, though).

So, considering brain research that is chasing the link between how the brain develops and violent videogames, what are the chances a modern teen will find fun activities among peers to develop social interactions that build character strength, solutions to social problems that don't involve "beating" or "winning" or out-maneuvering other people?  How many teens see life not as a contest to win but as an arena in which to build a structure that need have no limits?  

Will teens raised on solving problems by killing to "score" even recognize "strong characters" in their Romance stories?

What video games award double-points for avoiding harm to the 'bad guys?'

By what criteria do we judge character?  And by what criteria should we judge character? 

Remember the research article -- I think I pointed it out to you here some years ago -- that shows how the whole human species millions of years ago was twice reduced to nearly below species survival numbers?  Two bottlenecks in our evolution stripped out entire genetic characteristics. 

That is similar to the Biblical history that indicates how Adam and Eve arrived in our reality out of "The Garden of Eden" and proceeded to have children -- and later, The Flood reduced us to just Noah and his family with the Rainbow as the promise that the world would not be destroyed by flood again (didn't eliminate other means.)

The Bible indicates Seven Laws were given to Noah.  That's all the moral code humanity as a whole is responsible for, not all 10 Commandments (or 613 given in the Desert) -- just 7 catch-all principles.

With Free Will, each individual human must personally choose to accept these 7 rules of behavior and implement them in their life.

Those who choose to do that, and don't toss those 7 away just because there's an "emergency" are considered of "strong character" (not just by readers, but by editors, too).

In fact, these 7 Noachide Laws are the most effective ways to handle "emergencies" -- and what the person searching for a Soul Mate looks for is that behavior in emergency (great plot fodder there!  The third date can be a major emergency!) which applies those 7 Laws rigorously to generate a solution.

That kind of "strong character" who bends the world to his values is usually looked up to as a Leader.  "Leadership" means not just getting people to follow you (like Captain Kirk on ST: ToS ) but living a life which spurs others to become leaders.  The character to inspire and nurture Leadership in others is what any woman would look for in a potential father for her half-orphaned children. Then her children would become leaders with strong character. 

Leadership is (as any trained actor will point out) entirely described not just in the tone of voice (as we find in audiobooks) but evidenced in the GAIT -- the way a person walks, at least if he/she is young and not arthritic.  Consider that as a subliminal element in the "Love At First Sight" syndrome. 

You might want to study the British import TV show Masterpiece: Downton Abbey for the character of the new Valet who shows up in the first episode of the first season and is summarily rejected by the other servants because he's a "cripple" (i.e. has a leg injury from military service - class society rejects cripples just as a flock of ducks would).  The master of the House hired him as the new Valet because he's an old friend, but didn't know he had an unhealed injury and couldn't carry trays and so forth.  The Butler urges the Master to fire the fellow, and the Master does that.  The new Valet accepts the decree with a very civil, quiet objection to the Master's face saying only that he has nowhere else to go and it's unlikely anyone would hire him, and then he has a private cry because he has nowhere else to go.  But at the last second, as the new Valet is leaving, the Master rescinds his edict, and with embarrassment says "We'll say no more about it."   


The discovery that the new Valet's performance is impaired is (for the Master) an "emergency" - and at first he tosses his personal rules of honor away in order to conform to the "standards" of the house's servants.  This is what a weak character does.  Then he reasserts himself, thus "showing" us rather than "telling" us that the Master of this house is a man of "strong character."  Thus the entire issue of who will inherit the estate becomes much more important because we care about strong characters -- but not weak ones.  


The Master and the new Valet, of all the characters introduced in the first episode, pop out of the screen as "strong characters." 


Meanwhile, another one of the servants, displaced by the new Valet from promotion to "Valet to the Master," turns out to be a blackmailer trying to blackmail a Duke about a gay affair (in that time and society a blackmail issue).  So we are shown rather than told by stark contrast what the character of the new Valet is compared to that of the former Valet who is dominated by jealousy and manipulates with force.  


The former Valet is shown to be of weak character, not a leader.  The camera work on the new Valet focuses mainly on the eyes, and the steady gazes of pure Heroism he gives the Master of the House (who obviously was a superior officer to the new Valet in service in South Africa.)  They are men of different ranks, different stations in life, but they are both Heroes, strong characters.  One is appointed Leader by his born station in life, the other has attained leadership qualities by sheer determination.  But he starts out at the very bottom of the pecking order in this household's staff.   

Even the crippled Leader (Wounded Warrior) has a way of moving, holding the head, using the eyes steadily, an expression engraved in wrinkles, that bespeaks confidence that can only come from having forged a path through emergency after emergency without tossing out their core Values.

You see that exact thing in both the Villain and the Hero -- but it is most visible in the Mystical Leader, the Gandalf or Yoda of the Romance story.  That, to me, seems to be the kind of character the new Valet is set up to play - advisor. 

Any one of the 7 Noachide Laws will provide you with enough theme and plot to support the steamiest Romance story of Love At First Sight leading to a Soul Mate bond that creates a Happily Ever After. 

These are core thematic principles that subsume all human cultures all around the world -- translation may be a bit more difficult. 

What are these catch-all principles of such powerful use to Romance writers? 

THE 7 LAWS  (see wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Noahide_Laws
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The seven laws listed by the Tosefta and the Talmud are^[7]

1. Prohibition of Idolatry
2. Prohibition of Murder
3. Prohibition of Theft
4. Prohibition of Sexual immorality
5. Prohibition of Blasphemy
6. Prohibition of eating flesh taken from an animal while it is still alive
7. Establishment of courts of law

The Noachide Laws comprise the six laws which were given to Adam in the Garden of Eden, according to the Talmud's interpretation of Gen 2:16,^[8] and a seventh one, which was added after the Flood of Noah. Later, at the Revelation at Sinai, the Seven Laws of Noah were re-given to humanity and embedded in the 613 Laws given to the Children of Israel along with the Ten Commandments, which are part of, and not separate from, the 613 mitzvot. These laws are derived from the Torah. According to religious Judaism, the 613 mitzvot or "commandments" given in the written Torah, as well as their reasonings in the oral Torah, were only issued to the Jews and are therefore binding only upon them, having inherited the obligation from their ancestors. At the same time, at Mount Sinai, the Children of Israel were given the obligation to teach other nations the embedded Noachide Laws.^{[citation needed]} These laws also affect Jewish law in a number of ways.
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These 7 rules are the "Rules of the Game" and apply to all human relationships, but especially to the sexual one.

"Sportsmanship" is essential and teaches good sexual relationships if the sport is played to develop your style of human interaction rather than to demolish the opposition.  In real sportsmanship that models real life, you see opposing interests cooperating to develop each others' strength of character.  In youthful sports, children can re-possess themselves of the lessons driven home by previous life challenges and set off to live a much more productive life this time, one with a genuine Happily Ever After.

You can set up innate conflicts within each one of these (don't try to tackle all of them in one novel; you'll create a mishmosh).  A Hero, a Villain and a Mystic will each interpret these 7 concepts in different ways and apply them in different ways.  They will work at cross purposes, then toss their tools aside and go at one another to make the other stop interfering.  And in the end, both "win."

You can't stick with these 7 Noachide Laws through emergencies and not win because these rules do not apply to a zero-sum-game reality model.  They are predicated on the assumption that there is a Creator who is limitless and is creating our reality to be limitless, or at least sufficiently elastic to seem so. 

Read Rule #5 again and you'll see what I mean.  Land, Water, Oil, Herds, Money, Wealth, physical resources of all sorts are not to be fought over even if the apparent consequence is a loss.  Strength of character means proceeding through a conflict over material wealth (such as a divorce?) without deviating from the path you would have taken had the challenge not appeared.

In the zero-sum-game of reality, if one person is wealthy, then that means many others will be poor because there is only so much wealth to go around.  And if we look at our world in a certain way, that is a clear and obvious truth.  "If those people control that water, then I don't control it and therefore they will not let me water my animals and I will die and so will my children.  Therefore I have to kill those people." 

In the Noachide model of reality, thinking like that violates both Rule #5 and Rule #1 because you have made an "idol" (a source of the solutions to your problems) out of your own actions.  You assume that you and only you can solve the problem and that if you don't do this, then necessarily that will happen.  Same problem as the lifeboat problem, a classic philosophical conundrum. 

The Hero with a strong character will put his life, and his family's life, on the line in order to avoid violating either (nevermind both) of those rules.  The Villain with a strong character will do exactly the same, but upholding different rules, or the same rules with different interpretation. 

The strong character would rather die than violate a rule of that level.  The weak character will toss the rules of his or her life overboard because it's an emergency.  The real Villain will use one of the set of 7 rules to prove that a behavior violating another one of the rules is "right."  The real Hero does it more like Spock did in ST:ToS -- if it's deemed necessary to do something dishonorable, then willingly accept the consequences which are determined by others.

"Values" are the prioritized lists of individual applications of these 7 principles.  "Maturation" is the process of organizing your listed priorities -- what would you do to avoid doing whatever? 

Understanding how your opponent is another version of yourself with a different prioritized list of Values, how each of us is a unique individual muddling through "Life" as best we can, helps you sort out Heroes, Villains, Adversaries, and Opponents.  Any one, with any oddball list of priorities, can be a Strong Character or a Weak Character.  The biggest fiction market is for "Strong" characters -- in Hero, Villain, and Mystic.

If the Hero and the Villain are Soul Mates, you have got a winner, what they call in Hollywood a "four-bagger" that appeals to all ages at all levels of affluence.  In my novels, especially The Farris Channel, the Mystic is the Leader trying to make leaders out of the Hero and the Villain.  It's a multi-lifetime endeavor.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com