Of This And That....

This is my take on topical matters, mostly to do with copyright --as is my wont-- but with a few petty rants thrown in for good measure.

I'll save "the petty" for last.

For readers of this blog, it is possible that you may be considering use of images to decorate your own blogs, book trailers, vlogs, or even book covers. You probably are aware that everything on the internet is not necessarily "in the public domain" and free for all to use. If you are interested in the potential extent of your liability, consider visiting stockphotorights.com and check out their FAQ pages. They really are excellent.

"But, what," you may ask, "about Old Masters and photographs of Old Masters?" You might also do an internet search of "slavish" reproduction or copying. These may help.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp.

http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2013/06/14/museums-can-get-copyright-right/

If you are a celebrity, or are thinking of exploiting a photo you took of a celebrity, check out "image rights" as a search term.

While on the subject of blogs and vlogs, have you considered getting a trademark for your Blog name? (I did for my "space snark" blog on the assumption that one day, "snark" will be considered a positive.) It is not a cheap process, but this article on Lexology.com explains the advantages.

If you are an alien romance author (or any other kind of author... but I have to get my metadata in) who is trying to build up a following, beware of paying for Likes and Tweets. When social media was new-and-all, it seemed like everyone was bribing others to like them and to talk about them. Now, there is enough of it that a government agency sees the possibility of a revenue stream for the Treasury coffers. So, beware!

Isn't it odd that, when one spots one incorrect spelling on a site that ought to be reputable, more examples crop up in rapid succession? On April 7th I spotted a "recieve" on an official Amazon page (the Associates Central sign up page). I wrote to Jeff Bezos (kudos to Jeff for reading his incoming mail) and received a reply from someone named Bhaskar who assured me that it would take a bit more time than usual to look into the problem. Bhaskar promised to write back to me with more information. Well, it has been ten days, and the difficult research into how to spell receive correctly... has so far eluded them.

Mind you, it's probably not as simple as one might think. One of the most prestigious educational establishments in the country sent me a fund raising mailing, promising me that if I donated an obscene amount, I would "recieve" an ornament.

I blame the popular news media and their live streaming transcription services. One cannot be immediate and excellent as well. Editing takes time.

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

Strange Talismans

Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island, Florida, is the venue each March of the Amelia Island concours d' elegance, so I've been going there for about twenty years. Apparently, Amelia Island is the type of barrier island that was once far out to sea, and has migrated towards the coast, trapping marshland, and for some reason, this means that a great many fossilized sharks' teeth can be found on the beaches.

I could provide references... but I've just realized that Google Books is giving away free an entire ebook copyrighted in 2004 that is for sale as a Kindle on Amazon for $25.99. I'm not going to assist in ripping off the author!

Anyway, this year, I had the amazing fortune to receive the best shark tooth hunting lesson ever from one Nasif who works for the Ritz Carlton. Nasif drew wide circles with his finger in the gritty sand, and tell me to find the tooth. I found three --eventually-- thanks to him.  I also found a quite large fossilized tooth just tumbling in the surf. What a thrill.

Since then, I did a bit of pondering, and wondered why tourists obsess (as they do) over finding shark teeth and turning them into necklaces. There's probably an ingrained superstition about wearing fierce bits of creatures we fear in life... that's why we call them amulets, talismans, charms, juju, totems.

Hercules wore a lion skin. Crocodile Dundee wore a whole lot of teeth. Viking Berserkers wore bear skins and bones. (For a list of types of villains  http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Types_of_Villains_A-C ) The Kurgan villain in Highlander wore a scull as a helmet.

But why on earth do people make jewelry out of turds? Out of moose poop or deer poop to be specific?  I first heard of that charming custom when visiting Saab in Trollhattan, but apparently, they make earrings and necklaces out of moose do in Maine, too.

Other strange dangling ornaments available online include rings and earrings made of human molars, bat bits, mouse fetuses, coyote claws, cat claws, small fish (in liquid), squid bits (in liquid), bird skulls, and more besides.

So, in an alien romance, what totems might an alien sport? And why? Is there anything new under the sun?

Rowena Cherry

If You Value Your Domain....

We've heard of "eminent domain", but I'm considering a pun on "imminent domain", as in "imminent domain name expiration".

According to a Walker Morris LLP legal blog entitled "Jeb Bush, Donald Trump and a domain name" (which you can read by clicking here....  the eminent domain enthusiast (Mr. Trump) had keen-eyed staff looking out for the status of his GOP Presidential candidate rivals' domain names.

Apparently, Jeb Bush's campaign team lacked the enthusiasm to keep on top of the domain name "jebbush.com" or perhaps they lacked the imagination to consider what could conceivably happen to "jebbush.com" if they did not renew it. The Trump campaign paid for it, and now, Walker Morris LLP tells us, "jebbush.com" folds into "donaldtrump.com" and anyone wanting news about Jeb Bush finds themselves reading about Donald Trump's latest and greatest exploits.

For alien romance writers (science- or any other genre of fiction writers), it is important to register your own author name --or names-- before a would-be cyber-squatter gets them. If you invent a niche genre, you might want to buy the domain name for that. If you have the foresight and a career arc in mind, you might want to buy the domain names for your future book titles. You cannot copyright a title, and nor can the person who thought of a killer title that you hope to use one day, but if you own, for instance "Knight'sFork.com" at least no one else can own that domain name.

Just for the fun of it, I typed President Obama's "dreamsfrommyfather.com" into a search bar. It folds into PenguinRandomHouse, so don't bother.Hillary Clinton's "HardChoices.com" on the other hand seems to be redirected to a site advising elderly people on end-of-life decision-making. "TheArtOfTheDeal.com" gave me a service 503 message. "ArtOfTheDeal.com" took me to a static page. "ATimeForTruth.com" ....is for sale.
Ted Cruz is exposed. What an opportunity...  But, I've looked at 2 authors from each side, so I think I've been fair and even-handed.

It's also smart to occupy your own authorname on any social network. You may never actually use that network, but in theory it prevents the site from setting up a robo page about you, that is not run by you.

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

Sex in the Sea

If you're in search of ideas for truly alien sex, pick up SEX IN THE SEA, by marine biologist Marah J. Hardt. She begins with the quest for a potential mate, not always easy to find in the vastness of the oceans, and continues through courtship, mating, fertilization, and birth or hatching. Some sea creatures travel formidable distances back to their birthplaces to reproduce, while at the opposite extreme others (oysters, coral, etc.) spend their adult lives stuck in one spot and somehow have to get their gametes together without moving from that spot. Some animals change sex when they mature, while a few species can even flip their genders back and forth multiple times over their lives. There are species with two or three distinct types of males, one of which looks like a female in order to sneak past dominant macho-style males and mate with real females. Some male animals have penises longer than their bodies. There's even one that has sperm cells longer than its own body! Female right whales can have intercourse with two males at once, one on each side. A certain segmented, sand-dwelling worm has multiple penises or vaginas, one for each segment. Hardt says they mate like a zipper closing. Squids and octopuses use a specially adapted arm to place a sperm packet inside the female. There are creatures that detach their penises like darts. Hermaphroditic flatworms don't copulate in the "normal" way but stab each other with their organs to inject sperm anywhere in the mate's body. The males of some species of fish attach themselves to the bodies of their much larger mates and atrophy into mere sperm-dispensing appendages. One species takes this process even further, with a female hosting numerous tiny males inside her body. In one kind of shark that bears live young, stronger fetuses murder their weaker siblings in the womb.

Imagine what marriage would be like on a world where the dominant species reproduced like angler fish, with the husband a parasitic attachment to his wife. Consider the dramatic possibilities of sibling rivalry among intelligent beings who know their potential brothers and sisters were eaten in the womb. Sexual politics in a species that reproduced externally, like most fish and amphibians, would be quite different from the status quo in our culture, where the burden of carrying the young inside the body falls on the female. One of Fredric Brown's humorous short-short stories features a man who falls in love with a mermaid and agrees to be transformed into a merman so they can marry. After the change, he's horrified to learn that merfolk mate like fish, by spawning into the water instead of copulating.

Suppose a human hero fell in love with a member of a gender-fluid alien race, able to change sex back and forth depending on environmental cues such as the sex of his/her mate (like some fish). Marion Zimmmer Bradley creates such a race, the chieri, in her Darkover series, and one of the human characters in THE WORLD WRECKERS faces that very challenge.

Every chapter of SEX IN THE SEA offers similar thought-provoking oddities. Written in a breezy, slangy style, this book is both fun and informative.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Dialogue Part 8 Futuristic and Alien Dialogue by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Dialogue Part 8
Futuristic and Alien Dialogue
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts in this series on Dialogue -- edited to list 7 previous items on dialogue:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/10/dialogue-parts-1-4-listed.html

A concatenation of incidents focused this Dialogue entry in my mind:

a) I got an app that Bluetooths from a proprietary device to an iPad/iPhone/iPod and produces graphs and stats on the Apple device.  The data can also be "air-printed" (an Apple wi-fi app) if you email the results to yourself, open the email on the iPad or phone and hit air-print (a feature some new printers come with). 

b) I saw an episode of SUITS, mentioned below, with vivid, sterling, incredible off-the-nose-dialogue

c) I saw a TV News item on a new app that's garnered major attention.  I grabbed the app (it's on Apple, Kindle, Android), and began making my own "Magazines" with it.  Then I started a group of Sime~Gen folks collecting more stories for a Magazine I created and titled Sime~Gen Futurology, collecting articles about the harbingers of a massive genetic shift in Earth's biosphere. 

https://flipboard.com/magazines/

d) a while back, I saw an interview with the CEO of Cisco Systems doing a victory lap as his phrase "the Internet of Everything" was becoming accepted by other CEO's of big companies.  And I had seen the thermostat that rats out your settings on the internet to your power company.  (not to mention the NSA)  New refrigerators may have that feature, irrigation systems, everything in your house. 

You can subscribe to our Sime~Gen Futurology Magazine, but right now I've no idea how to do that from the web or how to write a link you can find in-app. 

So of course while trying to figure out how to point people to this magazine, the futurologist in me started wondering what this world of apps will lead to --- Theodore Sturgeon's watchword, "Ask The Next Question."  --- and one idea just leaped out at me while watching Political ads ( a writer never wastes a moment!)

Last week we examined the definition of a "Strong Character" -- which is a common requirement publishers put in market reports. 

Our complaints about politicians boil down to we never seem to get a candidate who actually has the "strong character" his/her speeches present. 

Studying politicians can clue you in to how to create a "strong character" an editor will buy.

But after you've invented a Strong Character, how do you convey to the reader that this character is actually "strong?" 

Well, actions, of course, and the style with which they confront challenges will show-don't-tell their strength. 

Watch the TV Series SUITS (about lawyers doing stare-downs of other lawyers).  It's streaming on AMAZON.  Each of the main, ongoing lawyer characters has a part of their character that is "strong" -- other parts, not so much.  Together they make a team, a law firm.

Roddenberry said that he got the Kirk-Spock-McCoy team by dissecting his own personality into 3 components.  Distilling out clear traits is necessary for good fiction writing. 

A character may have more traits than you show the reader, but what you show has to be a distillation where all the components say the same thing about that character or the "story" won't blend seamlessly with the "plot."  Remember, it's Theme that connects all the components, especially the story and the plot.

Actions are paramount in delineating Character, especially in Science Fiction.

But dialogue is ACTION.  Speech is action.  At a Victorian High Tea, a single word from the right person can destroy another person's social and economic position in life.  Speech is action.

The secret to writing good dialogue is to understand that the only dialogue reported by the writer to the reader is the interchanges that MOVE THE PLOT.

The characters may interact, discuss, chatter, gossip, etc. off-camera for hours and the whole of it can be boiled down to a couple of descriptive phrases.  The "action" picks up when "conflict" generates the dialogue, and that conflict must be the conflict that generates the plot and is resolved in the last scene.  Dialogue that advances the plot and story (simultaneously) toward that conflict-resolution point is the only dialogue that is written out in quotes. 

The exchanges that are written out in quotes are always "Mortal Combat" or "Chess" or some other "Game People Play" where the point of the exchange is to "one-up" or fool the other character, or beguile, or confess, or beseech, etc.  

Who "wins" the exchange is the new data-point that moves the plot.  To keep the pacing on beat, you have no more than 750 words to depict that scene (in a novel -- less in a script).

A scene begins where two characters come together or an Event sparks an exchange.  The scene ends when one or the other leaves the location (exits slamming the door?), or when another character ENTERS that location in the middle of the dialogue, changing the subject.  Sometimes it's a phone call that ends the scene, or it could be an item that comes up on the TV screen that tells them they are wrong about something. 

Scenes are the building blocks of novels and films, each with the same internal structure as the overall novel or film -- narrative hook, plot movement, cliff-hanger.

Now to the futurology.

If you've set your story in the future -- or an alternate present where Aliens Have Landed on Earth (or we run into some on Mars etc) - then you must alter your dialogue STYLE -- the unspoken premises and assumptions behind the words you choose -- so that the style itself evokes "The Future."

The words you choose for your characters to say have both "text" and "subtext" (see the 3 SAVE THE CAT! books by Blake Snyder for subtext.)

The subtext is the assumptions the characters make. 

Your reader gets their good feelings from decoding the subtext.  This is especially true in Mystery.  Your job as writer is to convince your readers that they are smarter than you are and smarter than the (very smart) characters. 

When readers decode a meaning, they believe it.  What you TELL them, they don't believe.  In other words, "subtext" is one of the SHOW DON'T TELL tools.  And it is the make-or-break of your story.

FUTUROLOGY

You have to fake the futurology because we're in the present and so is your reader (for the most part, maybe).  So let's "fake" a future thematic premise for a Strong Character to overcome.

SUPPOSE: this world of "the internet of things" (as Cisco Systems has taken to calling the connections among common household devices) actually works.

In April 2014, a promo from CISCO said this on twitter:
The #InternetofEverything helps @UPS improve delivery experiences to customers: cs.co/60169TtG pic.twitter.com/O9nA1ZmmtP

That article is
https://blogs.cisco.com/ioe/my-internetofeverything-perspective-driving-smarter-with-technology-and-ups
They're using RFID chips on packages etc. to "track" "stuff."  And now they're upping their game, interfacing with recipients and making everything ever so much more "convenient."  The article doesn't mention anything about privacy.  Imagine what enemies might do with this info about what you get, when, and where.

That tweet was posted the day a Union turned down part of a contract with UPS. 

Liar? Think about it.  Touting all the upside -- never mentioning the downside.

SUPPOSE: all this data-collection (from NSA spying on telephone calls all the way through electronic medical records) ends up succeeding in recording every traffic light you pass, every driving habit, every drink at a bar on the way home, every job task completed, every bit of clothing you buy, every morsel of food passing your lips, etc etc -- suppose EVERYTHING is a matter of record.

SUPPOSE: all these records are no longer considered private.

SUPPOSE: we make a law inserting recording devices all over Washington so no politician can so much as go to the rest room without every word spoken being recorded. (OK, maybe they'll leave out images?)

SUPPOSE: this means nobody can get away with a lie any more because on the TV News Screen beside the video clip of the politician's speech is a running counter-point of every single thing that politician did or said on that topic.  No more smoke-filled-back-room deals.  No more theatrical performances before cameras at Hearings after writing the script in a smoke-filled-back-room (ok maybe they'll leave out the smoke for political correctness?)

Total transparency.

Can Romance, even Alien Romance, coalesce without the gossamer veils of half-truths and uncertainty?  Looking into such a theme, a writer of Alien Romance might address the real nature of Romance itself.

What would it take to destroy humanity's ability to drift into Romance, to fall into Love?

SUPPOSE: all the politician's constituency lived lives just as recorded and transparent.

NO TV COMMERCIAL COULD EVER LIE TO YOU AGAIN -- right there on the screen is the clear, concrete (un-hackable) (unalterable) evidence of the real-reality.

You really wouldn't be "entitled" to your own facts. Subjective conclusions would still differ, but the reasons for the difference would be changed forever.

SUPPOSE: people just got out of the habit of lying at the age of say, 3 or 4.  Any time you make an honest mistake your "Google Glass" wearable appliance blasts out the correction for everyone around you to see, hear, and comprehend.  You get used to it, and nobody remembers anything being any different. 

NOW WHAT?

Well, humans being human, the be-all-and-end-all of existence would be to hack the system and gain control over everyone.

But what if our current civilization met up with Aliens who lived in a "recorded world" like that describes?

Are we toast?  Or are they? 

Power, the use and abuse thereof, is fodder for CONFLICT which is the essence of STORY (and plot).

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Reviews 7 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Reviews 7

by 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

With Volume 8 in her Alien Series, Gini Koch is opening out her canvas to reveal a huge story behind her story.

It fits with the theme of "What's Really Going On Here?"

And oh, given the current political season in progress, you just have to be asking yourself that question about your real world experiences.  Nothing is as it seems.

Against the backdrop of our "real" world, these novels become even funnier.

Yes, they are Action-Romance, but they are also fraught with humor just as Star Trek was (and is, and will be, I expect.)

Last week, I posted the Index to a long series of long posts on Theme-Worldbuilding Integration:

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

Koch's ALIEN Series is a marvelous example of what you can do with a well-integrated junction of theme and worldbuilding.

Koch has taken one character, Kitty Kat, given her a "life-story" or recurring theme and a coping strategy that works on a vast variety of problems life throws at her.

From that firm platform, Koch has built out a huge universe.  In Volume 8, we are getting a glimpse of a universe behind these stories as large, thematically rich, historically relevant, and philosophically sizzling as E. E. Smith's Lensman Series.

When Lensman was first published, you couldn't have Romance in a galactic action story.  E. E. Smith (Doc Smith) did it, though.  The Lensman romance inspired me to write SFR, and now Gini Koch has taken it all one step further.  She has built a world based on the most modern theories of space-time, and revealed the philosophical questions those theories ask.

This structure would collapse (e.g. become boring, incomprehensible, nonsensical, or meaningless) if it didn't have this integrated platform underneath the drama.

The setting is contemporary Earth -- with excursions to other planets.  But mostly the plot devices include incursions into Earth's environment from other planets.

Then bit by bit over the first 8 (of what I hope will be many more) novels, the larger universe outside Earth is revealed.

In Alien Research, a new character is introduced whose existence doesn't change the Situation -- but does give us an AHA! moment when we finally begin to understand "what's going on" here.

You might want to look at my review posted on Amazon:



From a technical, craft standpoint, you can study these novels as examples of a manuscript which I see as in need of perhaps as much as 20% line-cutting.  There are wordy phrases, dialogue loops, and speeches that could be rewritten to be more incisive dialogue.

But the plotting is exemplary, the visuals are penetrating, the cast of characters is huge but each is vividly drawn so you do remember them with only the slightest prompting, and the main character is someone you might actually like to BE.

This is a great series, and after eight huge novels, still shows signs of becoming greater.

The ALIEN SERIES is Science Fiction Romance at the genre's best.

Generation V by M. L. Brennan is a Vampire Novel I might have missed.



I met M. L. Brennan as she was signing autographs at Worldcon in San Antonio in 2013, and only just got around to reading the book she autographed for me, Generation V.

Now I see there's another one available on Amazon:



I'm thrilled, but I haven't read IRON NIGHT yet.

Generation V is tightly crafted, smoothly written, well paced, and an all around satisfying read, whether you like Vampire Romance or not.  Though romance isn't in focus in this novel, the potential is there.  More than Vampire Romance, though, the potential of this series is for Alien Romance -- the women in this hero's life are not, hmmm, all human.

Although Generation V is a Vampire novel, urban fantasy with a dark and bloody side to it, the overall tone of the point of view character's take on the world is more on the "light" side.

The main character's name is Fortitude, and he definitely has that virtue. 

His family is rather typical of today's urban fantasy vampires -- bloody, murderous, and blythe about the supernatural. 

There is not a lot of deep substance showing in this first novel.  None of the characters seem to be interested in puzzling out "what is really going on" -- which in this case would be an intersection of the fantasy/magic world of mythic creatures with our everyday Earth (instead of aliens from outer space, as Gini Koch is dealing with).

But the potential for such depths of mystical theory are wound deep into the springboard of this first novel.

Fortitude is well educated, but has a lot to learn.  He has skills, talents and abilities that can be "re-purposed" (you did read my review of ALIEN RESEARCH on Amazon, didn't you?) just as Kitty Kat has.

He is a fish out of water and does not know it (yet). 

In this first novel, Fortitude begins to come into his heritage as a Vampire, and learns how vampires are made. 

Generation V also gives us a hint of the politics of supernatural creatures co-existing among humans, and that has a potential to rival Washington D. C.

If the theme-worldbuiding integration is done as well for this new fictional world as Gini Koch has managed to do so far, M. L. Brennan has a winner on her hands.

You will want to be in on the ground floor to watch this universe being built.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

How To Marry A Rich Man

This was posted on Google+ by a photographer:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/107023475113646570269/posts 

But it raises the quintessential Romance Writer's Question -- How To Marry Rich (or above one's station in life).

Here's what Baber Afzal
Film Maker, Experimentalist and an HDR/Portrait Photographer
Posted (I've no idea if this particular CEO actually said this, but it doesn't matter for this exercise).

-----------QUOTE--------------
A reply from CEO of J.P. Morgan to a pretty girl seeking a rich husband


A young and pretty lady posted this on a popular forum:

Title: What should I do to marry a rich guy?

... I'm going to be honest of what I'm going to say here.

I'm 25 this year. I'm very pretty, have style and good taste. I wish to marry a guy with $500k annual salary or above.

You might say that I'm greedy, but an annual salary of $1M is considered only as middle class in New York.

My requirement is not high. Is there anyone in this forum who has an income of $500k annual salary? Are you all married?

I wanted to ask: what should I do to marry rich persons like you?

Among those I've dated, the richest is $250k annual income, and it seems that this is my upper limit.

If someone is going to move into high cost residential area on the west of New York City Garden(?), $250k annual income is not enough.

I'm here humbly to ask a few questions:
1) Where do most rich bachelors hang out? (Please list down the names and addresses of bars, restaurant, gym)
2) Which age group should I target?
3) Why most wives of the riches are only average-looking? I've met a few girls who don't have looks and are not interesting, but they are able to marry rich guys.

4) How do you decide who can be your wife, and who can only be your girlfriend? (my target now is to get married)

Ms. Pretty

A philosophical reply from CEO of J.P. Morgan:

Dear Ms. Pretty,
I have read your post with great interest. Guess there are lots of girls out there who have similar questions like yours. Please allow me to analyse your situation as a professional investor.

My annual income is more than $500k, which meets your requirement, so I hope everyone believes that I'm not wasting time here.

From the standpoint of a business person, it is a bad decision to marry you. The answer is very simple, so let me explain.

Put the details aside, what you're trying to do is an exchange of "beauty" and "money" : Person A provides beauty, and Person B pays for it, fair and square.

However, there's a deadly problem here, your beauty will fade, but my money will not be gone without any good reason. The fact is, my income might increase from year to year, but you can't be prettier year after year.

Hence from the viewpoint of economics, I am an appreciation asset, and you are a depreciation asset. It's not just normal depreciation, but exponential depreciation. If that is your only asset, your value will be much worse 10 years later.

By the terms we use in Wall Street, every trading has a position, dating with you is also a "trading position".
If the trade value dropped we will sell it and it is not a good idea to keep it for long term - same goes with the marriage that you wanted. It might be cruel to say this, but in order to make a wiser decision any assets with great depreciation value will be sold or "leased".

Anyone with over $500k annual income is not a fool; we would only date you, but will not marry you. I would advice that you forget looking for any clues to marry a rich guy. And by the way, you could make yourself to become a rich person with $500k annual income.This has better chance than finding a rich fool.

Hope this reply helps.

signed,
J.P. Morgan CEO

---------END QUOTE-------

My comment was:

There's a question that's gone unasked here, and the CEO POV almost captures the issue but not quite.  "What qualities do high-income jobs imbue into a prospect that "I" (the not-so-rich pretty one) would find attractive?"  In other words, what do I need in a husband that would inevitably cause him to be a high-income-earner?

The CEO worked the problem from the high-income-earner's POV, but not from the low-income-earner's POV.

And it occurs to me to wonder if the pretty woman was actually a low income earner.

Which begs the question, why does income-status (or asset status) difference matter in marriage?

Or does it matter, really? 

We've seen all this mulled over in thousands of "trash romances" -- read-and-toss romances, all cut from the same cloth. 

And we've seen it tackled in long Romances, with wide, deep, wrenching themes, or in Fantasy Universes where the marriage twists the course of history for several civilizations.

This is an issue in today's world where we are wrestling with whether human cultures actually create CLASS DIFFERENCES inevitably, or should we strive to erase "CLASS" from social structure? 

Crossing "Class" lines for marriage in any culture is an Alien Romance -- it's romance with someone so different they may as well not be human.  Well, you could probably make a case for that for any male/female marriage, Venus and Mars and all that.  Add a class barrier (or a age gap) and you're talking Alien Romance. 

Is there even really such a thing as "CLASS" -- as a permanent attribute of a human being.  (My Fair Lady)

What this pretty woman was pondering was the methodology of changing her CLASS by an act of will.

She may be unable to answer the question because it's not framed well.

The marriage "transaction" is (as we noted last week) one of GIVING and RECEIVING -- not TAKING and RECEIVING. 

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

The question the CEO was dancing around is, "What have you got to offer in return for wealth?" 

What have you got that wealth does NOT have? 

If you would RECEIVE you must first GIVE -- and what the CEO was perceiving was an attempt to TAKE instead of GIVING.

In a real Soul-Mate match between someone hugely wealthy and someone not wealthy, usually you find that the not-wealthy one brings some talent, ability, or magic to the Relationship that actually causes the entire family's system to function. 

"Behind every successful man is a strong woman." 

Very often, the earning power of a man goes way up after he commits himself to a woman.  When you commit to GIVE, then the means to do that giving will come into your life (it's called the Law of Abundance in Magic, and just God in most Religions.  But the function of it does not depend on belief.)

Sometimes a very wealthy man (say who inherits wealth) marries a woman who is a great wealth manager.

Sometimes a wealthy woman marries a man who is a great wealth manager.

But consider the woman above -- she presents herself (perhaps coyly) as having nothing but beauty.  To whom is a woman of great beauty valuable?  To an artist, producer, or other purveyor (modeling agency owner) of beauty. 

Suppose, however, that the pretty woman has some other attribute than beauty, an attribute that will appreciate with time provided there is wealth available?

An example would be a woman who needs an expensive education to invent or discover something to change the human misery index in this world?

Say for example, this is a young woman with the Vision of how to create a cure for a disease or disorder, but she needs a doctorate and can't even get a scholarship?

Or suppose she is an entrepreneur type person who needs an investor.

In neither example is marriage the necessary component to make the business transaction work.

The fodder for a novel can be found in these situations though when you ask, "Why hasn't he found the cure for this disease, or gotten this or that education, or started up this or that business?"  Why didn't he do it himself? 

Then you ask, "Why hasn't she found a way to get the education, or team up with someone who has it?"  or "Why hasn't she just started a little garage business and demonstrated to neighbors that they should invest $100 in her business?"  (other than that this current government is making such startups impossible by making it illegal to do any of these little things without expensive permits and compliance and lawyers.)

Find answers to those "Why" questions for the high-income earner (could be either the man or the woman), then solve the entire problem by putting the two of them together into a marriage made in heaven -- where the spirits intertwine so cleanly and so naturally that each is energized, given vision, ambition, abilities they never had before BECAUSE OF the spiritual union between them supporting emotional health.

What happens when two such souls join in marriage?  Sometimes just a business partnership is needed; sometimes it needs marriage to pull off the trick -- either is 7th House.  What happens is that the spiritual energy circulating between them in that closed circuit called marriage creates the magical equivalent of the magnetic field circulating electrons create.

That magical/magnetic field can do "work" -- change things in the vicinity -- cause opportunities to arrive, trigger the actions necessary to take advantage of the opportunity, and then cascade on into a full materialization of the opportunity's potential energy. 

We discussed this magical/magnetic analogy last week.

In the Magical (Paranormal Romance) view of reality, the magic CAUSES the result.

In the God centered view of reality, the Soul reaches for contact (closes the circuit) with God, and spiritual energy flows into Reality through the person and imbues their actions with more effectiveness than when that circuit with God is open.

Either explanation will work for some readers -- but the trick the writer has to pull off is to present the vision of this process working out (a fulfilled marriage) and producing concrete results that one character explains one way, another character explains another way, and a third gives a totally different view.  None of these explanations are, (or should be) those of the author or the reader.  They are certain individual characters applying archetypical principles to the problem presented in the novel -- leaving the reader to puzzle over what really happened, knowing that the events depicted are possible in their own life.

To do that, the writer must be able to assume the point of view of each of these fully rounded characters, and for a time, to believe their explanation of why the universe works the way it does, to believe that philosophical point of view.

You have to be able to argue all kinds of points of view that are not your own.

To do that, you have to explore philosophy that is not your own.

To do that, you have to shelve your prejudices.

You see around you (just read some blog comments on the larger media sites) opinions you know in your gut are absolutely despicable -- that no honorable or reasonably value conscious human being could possibly espouse. 

You live in a world that doesn't know the difference between opinion and fact, or between opinion and a question!  But you, as a fiction writer, (most especially Romance which makes too many assumptions that aren't properly questioned in the plot), must know the difference between your own opinion, your character's opinion, facts, reality, and fiction.

To create a universe full of characters who walk off the pages into your readers' dreams, you must find for yourself a vision of this universe, how and why it functions as it does, and then how and why all these different people (your potential readers) see a totally different universe around them.  Then you have to explain to your readers the visions of the universe held by your other readers. 

This is a process that Walter Breen called "Shifting Subjectivities."  I can't think of a better name for it.

We all live in a subjective world where the self is at the "origin" (the point where the X, Y, and Z axes of our coordinate system cross), but each and every one of us is the "origin" of a totally different coordinate system.  We do have one immutable thing in common.  We all are at THE origin of A coordinate system. 

We are all unique individuals -- but we're all the same. 

That's why Hollywood is always calling for "The Same But Different." 

Create that effect among the characters of a novel and no matter how whacked out your Paranormal Romance worldbuilding has to become to tell the oddball story of Love overcoming Impossible Odds - your novel will have a powerful verisimilitude that will vibrate the subconscious minds of your readers.

By creating these individual characters living in their individual worlds, you create an opportunity for them to have Relationships.

The more stark the difference between two characters, the more powerful the attraction.

Thus the poor-but-beautiful girl can marry the rich-but-socially-awkward boy, and the two make a team that can achieve miracles.

The way to marry a rich person is to study what changes riches make in a person -- and contrast that transformed person with yourself.  Then make those changes in yourself, (My Fair Lady) even without the riches. 

Another reason "the rich" don't want to associate with "the poor" closely enough to form a Relationship is simply that so many of "the poor" don't see themselves as "rich." 

There's a Chassidic story about a Rabbi who was very poor (in money) - living in a hovel, barely able to feed wife and children - and he was known for his Wisdom and for being a very happy individual whose good cheer was infectious.  A miserable rich man came to inquire how this Rabbi could be so happy while penniless, and the poor man looked around his dirt-floored hovel and basically asked, "Poverty?  What poverty?" 

You live at 0,0,0 in your coordinate system - at the origin.  Each and every individual is in a place at the center of their universe, but only one person at a time can occupy any given place.  How one fictional character sees their life is not how the other fictional characters in the story see theirs.

How you see your life may not be how your life really is.  You can look up the Z axis -- or out the X axis -- or 90 degrees over there on the Y axis -- or 45 degrees out into the fields in between in any combination of directions -- and in each direction you will see something different, yet all these views are the truth.

You can't change your birth time, and thus your "life" (at what age certain things MIGHT happen).  But you can change how you view these events.

When you invent a character, invent their direction of view at the start of the story -- hammer them with Events -- wrench them around to look in another direction at their Life. 

Show this process in your Romance stories, show how looking in one direction all you can find are medium income potential spouses, but looking in the other direction from where you "are" you can see very rich people. 

Show how this change of direction of view can change the direction of a life's progress -- for better or for worse.

So, how do you marry a rich man?  Look at the man you've married and find where he is rich!  Look at yourself, find your riches, and give them.

That bit of advice won't help you write a MARRY A RICH MAN ROMANCE all by itself, but coupled with last week's post and the posts linked at the bottom of it,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/theme-element-giving-and-receiving.html
you will begin to understand Giving, Receiving and Taking at a level where you will have something important to add to the "Marry Above Your Station" Romance Genre.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Heroes With Prostheses

A correspondent recently expressed doubt that Viz-Igerd (a secondary antagonist in Knight's Fork) could ever be a suitable/marketable hero in his own right, because he has an artificial hand.

What about Wolverine?

Is Wolverine potential Romance hero material, even with his hot temper and troubled past? Where does the gentle reader draw the line?

Luke Skywalker had an artificial hand, as did his father. Does anyone wonder how many Jedi had bionic body parts? When one fights with light sabers, it seems likely that a lot did.

Did anyone fantasize about Lee Majors' "Six Million Dollar Man" in the late 1970's? Was Steve Austin the first cyborg hero? How influential was that show? And why don't they do a remake?

Wolverine, Luke, and Col Austin looked "normal" at least some of the time. Anakin went to bed with a hand of gold. Was that a problem? Be honest. So, now I'm thinking of other beloved heroes who have what I will brutally call "something wrong" with them. One is Laura Kinsale's "Prince of Midnight" who is deaf in one ear. One can certainly be hard of hearing and still be a hunk and a hero!

The Amazon forums have a discussion full of recommendations for heroes and heroines who don't hear well, but few of them have ear implants, unlike Arthur Dent, galactic Hitchhiker, who had a Babel Fish. I also recommend this link for a discussion of super senses.

Here's an interesting discussion of TV tropes about artificial limbs and "disability superpowers", including a link to characters who hot-swap their bionic parts according to their needs at the time. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArtificialLimbs.

There is also a link to an interesting article about when asymmetry is cool. As is pointed out, society tends to find symmetry attractive. Arms and legs should match. In my distant youth, I dated an Olympic oarsman. He was a Stroke, and one side of his back and shoulders was visible more developed that the other side. It never occurred to me to think of this as a deformity.... and it certainly has nothing to do with prostheses.... but what if the second most famous hunchback in History (Richard III) was simply a superb sportsman, whose muscles on the lance-hefting side of his body were over developed?

Check out the comprehensive Anatomy Arsenal listed here. It has to be admitted, few of these (particularly Fartillary) has great Romantic potential for the alien romance author, unless one is free of the constraints of a mass market editor, and probably work better for adolescent-oriented comic books..

Finally, there is a Listmania on Amazon where a reader compiles her list of favorite books with heroes or heroines who are physically imperfect, including some with bad knees. I recommend it to any alien romance author looking for the encouragement to write that disfigured or implanted or surgically "improved" hero or heroine.

Risk Takers In Fiction And Life

Risk-taking is in our DNA.

It is valued in times of crisis (war, exploration) but not so much in local emergencies when the authorities fly red flags on the beaches and urge folks to stay out of the surf and the rip currents.

I stood instep deep in the surf as Irene passed north west Florida, and I watched people around me take breathtaking risks. Persons in loco parentis took toddlers thigh deep. Tanned teenagers with broken noses and surf boards paddled far out (among the whales and dolphins and who knows what else) to ride the biggest waves. One at least was parted from his board and visibly struggled not to drown before staggering out of the water tens of yards down the coast. He retrieved his board, moved south of the rip current, and went back to surf some more.

To some extent, that surfer's behavior reminds me of one of our society's strictures. If you fall off your bike (or horse) you must get right back on again, or you will lose your bottle and may never ride again.

Aside: Have you ever noticed how many popular proverbs cancel out one another?

Presumably, the "Type" of person who ventures into space will be one of the risk-taking types, unless he or she is a mild-mannered abductee or conscriptee. Or, do you think that spacefarers and their descendants will be "all sorts", just like us?

Here's an interesting blog http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/10-most-popular-professions-for-romance-novel-heroes_b28447 listing the most popular professions for romance novel heroes.

How much does it differ from the most popular alien romance novel heroes? We probably have more captains, generals, commanders; more resourceful fugitives; more pilots, pirates, and smugglers. Not to mention professional demons, dragons, angels, vampires and vampire hunters. Risky jobs all.

An author has to up the ante. Therefore, each consecutive risk must be more dangerous, more costly to the risk-taker, and the stakes must be ever higher. The trick, perhaps, is to remain plausible. Or is it?

If, in the middle of a chase scene and desperate fist fight, the American hero picks up a secret note written by a foreign spy who generally speaks his foreign language among his fellow foreign conspirators, and a vital note dropped by the villain is in English, does anyone mind?

If one shady hero was shot in the shoulder and fell off a two-storey building the fictional day before yesterday, and his unwilling, geeky side-kick is shot in the shoulder yesterday and also in the foot today (and neither received more medical attention than one can pick up in a cut price supermarket first aid kit) can they really climb tall chicken wire fences, leap ditches, and triumph in several consecutive bouts of fisticuffs?

Does The Risk trump everything else? Serious question. Has the audience changed in a faster paced world? Does it matter only that the reader keeps turning the page, or virtual page, until the end? Or does it still matter if there is that "Hey, how is that possible...?" reaction as the reader closes the book?

Dog Training For Alien Characterization

My beach reads this summer included "It's Me Or The Dog" by Victoria Stilwell. I wasn't far into the book when I saw the potential for alien romance writing inspiration.

Dogs have different abilities and some of their senses are much better than ours. Take the sense of smell and the logic of sniffing, for instance. Dogs perceive events and behaviour differently. Just as a romance hero alien would.

In one passage of the book, Victoria Stilwell recounts what most humans think if they see a dog joyfully rolling in the grass. We (humans) anthropomorphise. We assume that the dog is enjoying the sort of experience that we would enjoy, if we rubbed our spines against fragrant, cool grass. In fact, wild dogs use scent the way human deer hunters dress up in camouflage. The dog is blending in, disguising his scent.

As I think about sniffing, and the useful social information dogs glean from where other dogs have "been", it occurs to me that a sexually lonely alien with dog-like senses would probably find the Ladies section of public toilets irresistible. What a great source of conflict!

One potentially hilarious part of the book discusses the qualities of leadership that are appreciated by dogs. These qualities include the ability (of the leader) to project happiness, also aloofness, also calm authority. What fun it would be to assess some of the world's most prominent politicians as if we were dogs!

Be warned, "It's Me Or The Dog" contains some very sad stories of how differently humans view dog behaviour and motivation, and how badly these misunderstandings can play out for the dog. It is certainly a thought-provoking tome, and I recommend it... not just to alien romance writers.

Human Evolution (Extrapolation)

Any author of alien romance would be fascinated to read Susanna Baird's July 8th article published on AOL. explaining that Tibetans Evolved at Fastest Pace Ever Measured

At least, I assume so. The more science that backs up whatever is convenient for the purposes of telling a great science fiction, the better. That's why I love books such as "The Physics of Star Trek" by Lawrence Krauss, and "The Science Of Star Wars" by Jeanne Cavelos.

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about the interesting scientific assertion that genitalia (at least in beetles) evolve much more quickly than other parts. Apparently, it's a matter of what intrigues and pleases the female of the species.

It seems that blood and lungs and genes and DNA evolve in humans. That's a matter of survival in a harsh environment. Of course, we've heard about blood doping, and the suggestion that training at high altitudes can give endurance athletes a competitive advantage.

Aliens from harsher environments than ours could plausibly be considered supermen. If their gravity were heavier (as with my Great Djinn from Tigron) they could leap higher and further. If their air were thinner, they'd seem far more athletic in our rich air.

One has to remember the obverse of this. If these aliens are going to take a human wife home with them, she is going to have problems with their thin air and heavy gravity (as my Djinni-vera does in "Forced Mate".)

Another bit of useful trivia is the effect of weightlessness (space travel) on the human body. For instance, bones lose mass, everywhere except the skull, and some of that unnecessary calcium finds its way to the kidneys where it creates "stones". The Johnson space center in Houston has an astounding display of astronaut kidney stones.

For that reason, gymnasium scenes about spaceships make a lot of sense... and I do have a few of those. Exercise is very important if your alien or human interstellar traveler is going to stay in shape, and reasonably comfortable in the bathroom.

I'll just point out a couple of interesting features of the study of Himalayan Tibetans as reported by Susanna Baird. The Tibetans live almost 3 miles about sea level, but are otherwise closely related to the Han Chinese who live nearby as the crow flies (probably not a crow!) but 3 miles lower.

Time scale. This rapid evolution (of more than 30 genes) is estimated to have taken  "the evolutionarily brief span of 2,750 years."

If one has a premise that ones aliens are forgotten human colonists, they'd have had to have left Earth at least in 750 BC. (Or over 100 generations ago.)

Number of mutated genes necessary for a single functional adaptation.

 

Just as retaining e-book and POD rights requires about 23 changes to a boilerplate publishing contract, "Researchers found more than 30 mutated genes in the Tibetans, most of which were not mutated in the Chinese. More than half the mutated genes related to the body's processing of oxygen."

 

You'd think that one gene would suffice? Apparently, for plausibility, base any evolution on a lot more tiny mutations than that!

Does anyone know what the threshold would be, beyond which interbreeding ought to become impossible? 

 

Since I started writing in 1992, I "solved" that problem to my own satisfaction with the concept of "smart semen"....

Ooops. I just burned breakfast. Gotta go.

Rowena Cherry

Mutants as Aliens in Sime~Gen

As I mentioned in passing a few weeks ago, I recently stumbled upon a blog entry from a reader in Australia who reread Unto Zeor, Forever (my second Sime~Gen novel published and my first Award Winner) recently and she identified the reason she had been fascinated by this novel years ago upon first reading. 

Unto Zeor, Forever is actually SFR where mutation generates the Alien in Alien Romance. 

Here's the blog post that started me thinking: 

-------quote--------
This was before I found romance. And looking back, the only one on the list that’s really a romance (and probably the only one of all the books I read at the time) is Unto Zeor Forever. Interesting that it was the romance that I obsessed abut the most, yes?
------end quote-------
http://lovecatsdownunder.blogspot.com/2010/05/rachel-needs-book-advice.html

Unto Zeor, Forever is a novel that stands about among its contemporaries because the plot is relationship driven.  It's typical SF in that the plot puts the fate of the world in jeopardy and appoints one particular individual to exceed his personal limits of capability (to sacrifice himself to near destruction, and even beyond destruction of everything dear to him in life) in order to Save The World.

It's a "first contact" novel.  Two people from distant societies isolated from each other first learn about the other, find the "other" unbearably strange, and must adjust.

It's a "Mutant Novel" - in that it's set in the far future when humanity has mutated into two strains.  It's set beyond the point where they each intend to kill the other side off, and at the cusp of the point where they begin true acceptance instead of an uneasy truce.

Acceptance means destruction of social orders on each side of their borders, so it's sociological science fiction.

It's "hard SF" in the sense that the main plot problem is a scientific puzzle that can be solved only by scientific experiment, investigation, amassing statistics, understanding the inscrutible nature of the two kinds of human biology (Sime and Gen). 

The resolution of the plot happens only because of a scientific breakthrough.  But the "science" is entirely "made up" - totally imaginary.  It simply fills the spot in their society that our science fills in ours.

All of those kinds of SF novel were extant and very popular at the time Unto Zeor, Forever was first published in hardcover (1978).

What was unusual, perhaps even anti-commercial publishing, was that all these types of SF novel were jumbled together in one novel, a "cross-sub-genre" novel. 

What you see when you read this novel depends on what you expect to see, what you want to see, and maybe also on your ability to follow a complex piece of writing.  It simply would never make a movie.  It's way too "deep." 

Unto Zeor, Forever is also a trope-busting novel, another reason it was shoved aside and shunned by vast sections of the publisher's target readership.

What trope did it bust?  SCIENCE FICTION must never contain ROMANCE, and ROMANCE must never contant SCIENCE FICTION.

The structure of Unto Zeor, Forever is basically SFR, and the blend is crafted in such a way that, unless you're well practiced at analyzing novels, you will have a hard time deciding if it's SF that contains Romance or Romance that contains SF. 

Romance drives the plot, but not via sexuality.  (but some readers can't tell that).

Science drives the plot, but not via "real" science or even extrapolation of existing science. 

Because the science is totally made up, this novel published as SF then might today be published as FANTASY!  (the field of futuristic fantasy didn't exist at that time so publishers had no way to market such a misfit novel)

What is the science made up of, though?  The material underlying the made-up science of the Sime~Gen Universe is material no self-respecting SF writer (such as Robert J. Sawyer who had the grace to drop a very insightful comment on my post about his fabulous SF novel, WWW: WATCH
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/06/wwwwatch-by-robert-j-sawyer.html ) would touch.

As the success of STAR TREK (slow to start as it was) illustrated, one core value of SF decades ago was the total rejection of the model of the universe in which God runs things, up close and personal.

In STAR TREK, all divine beings turn out to be frauds. 

At the time the Sime~Gen Universe world was built, STAR TREK had not yet been conceived, at least not in the form we eventually saw it take.

Science Fiction which I surveyed and analyzed had left the entire realm of human psychology, the human spirit, and the yearning for real touch with the Divine out of every story.

The philosophical premise of the SF field was simply that science can explain everything about humans (and non-humans) simply by studying biology, biochemistry, physics, and hard sciences. 

The premise that there exists and Divine force, that souls are real, was discarded before the worldbuilding began.

The Sime~Gen premise is "real SF" because it takes that blind assumption of all the writers and readers of the field, and challenges it from the blind spot.

That's right, Sime~Gen was deliberately crafted to blindside readers, hit where no one had hit before.

The science and worldbuilding of Sime~Gen is rooted in psychic sciences, spiritual sciences (karma, reincarnation), anthropology, linguistics, social sciences, psychology, and even religion. 

But in order to sell it, none of that could be allowed to show on the surface in the early novels.  (and to date, one novel where it's tackled head-on, has not made it into publication, The Farris Channel).

As a result of hiding the premises, and deliberately blindsiding the readership, half the fans drawn to the books really dislike the whole psychic, ESP, other dimensional aspects of the worldbuilding. 

Two Sime~Gen Novels allow some of that "The Soul Is Real" premise to trickle through into reader consciousness. 

Unto Zeor, Forever by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, and First Channel by Jean Lorrah and Jacqueline Lichtenberg are both blatant "Soul Mate" stories. 

First Channel was recently singled out in this Romance blog:

http://likesbooks.com/cgi-bin/bookReview.pl?BookReviewId=7437

-----quote----
While First Channel is not a romance, the story is propelled by Rimon and Kadi's feelings for each other. Other characters fall in love as well, some with tragic consequences. Events unfold over several years, giving it a more realistic feeling than in so many stories where everything is resolved in a relationship in a week or two. The setting was so unique that I am planning to read some of the other books in the series to find out what the future holds for the Sime and Gen.
-----end quote-----

It's more than "the story" that's propelled by the young couple's feelings for one another.  It's the plot of the book, AND the fate of the entire human species, Sime and Gen alike, as love itself cracks a scientific puzzle that has locked humanity into a decline into primitive warfare where 30 years old is ancient. 

Both these novels detail the meeting and mating of two people who are Soul Mates, Destined for each other.  Their decisions actually change history, change the world, at a deeply personal cost.

Jean Lorrah, after analyzing and dissecting an early draft of Unto Zeor, Forever, penetrated to the core of the matter with her premise that ONLY LOVE could ever have taught a Sime how not-to-Kill Gens. 

Buried deep inside Unto Zeor, Forever is the Great Theme of all Romance, "Love Conquers All" but it's not revealed until Jean Lorrah came along and detailed it in First Channel. 

Each member of each couple makes certain independent free will choices, and the cascading results of those choices tumble them willy nilly into the annals of History. 

As mentioned above, "The Soul Is Real" concept leads directly to REINCARNATION IS REAL in the Sime~Gen Universe. 

So if you know how to read these novels, if you know the unpublished secrets behind what's really happening, you can see that you are reading a series of LIFETIMES lived by the same souls, taking different relationships to each other, learning from past errors, making up for the untoward results of their previous actions. 

And in some lifetimes, the souls are rewarded by finding their Soul Mates and achieving spiritual goals -- all without knowing it, just like in our real lives. 

None of these novels could ever have been published if all that "Fantasy stuff" and that "Romance stuff" had been blatantly displayed on the surface.  And in fact, the merest whiff of these matters disqualified these novels from becoming publisher's "Lead Title" (the only one ever put on book shelves in chain stores or supermarkets). 

So even though Unto Zeor, Forever ends in a tragedy of monumental proportions, and heads into a hiatus of spiritual progress for one of the souls, you can see that the tragedy had a past-life cause and will generate a future HEA when you reread the series of 8 novels in different orders. 

Making a spiritual premise (Human Nature can change, and for the better too -- all humans are Good at the core) into the "Science" in the Science part of Science Fiction challenges the very definition of what SF really is. 

That subliminal challenge offends some, and awakens others to the vast possibilities SF of previous decades left unconsidered.

That awakening is starting to explode into our world with Vampire Romance, with female lead characters in Urban Fantasy, with warfare against Evil led by women. 

Here is a collection of links to links to my previous posts on the "science" upon which Sime~Gen's worldbuilding rests, included here because someone just wrote to me saying she'd found my first non-fiction book on the Tarot and wanted the rest.

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

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

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/04/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me.html 

And here's an exchange from twitter:

@JLichtenberg: @Azrael52 Novels now come in serials just like TV shows "story arc" - everything pubs send me is bk#X in YYseries #scifichat

@michaelspence @JLichtenberg (And whose fault is that? YOU were the first writer I read who talked in terms of series rather than individual stories! :^) )

I always find it amazing when other professional writers say they've read some of my novels, or even just Star Trek Lives!

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com (currently available)
http://www.simegen.com/jl/ (complete bio-biblio)

Where Expert Romance Writers Fail

I often hang out at chats on twitter, especially those frequented by writers and fiction readers/viewers.

#scifichat is held at mid-day on Fridays (Eastern Time) and goes for 2 hours. Near the end of #scifichat on June 4th, 2010, the moderator asked the 7th of the 8 Questions in the format:

@scifichat #scifichat Q7: Can we envision a day when all disabilities are overcome? Utopia, or dystopia? #disability #progress #scifi #fantasy #books 12:31 PM Jun 4th via API

@PennyAsh Q7 I would say dystopia is more likely #scifichat 12:34 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck

All my inner alarm bells went off reading @PennyAsh's comment. She's a Romance Writer. She thinks dystopia is more likely.

I've found that she and I share a lot of interests in common, books, TV shows. She's been writing fantasy romance, vampires, steam punk, and other SF/F stories. She's well trained in how to cast a story into a plot line.

Yet, the moderator's question during a discussion of Disabilities in SF triggered a lazy reversion to a non-thinking, non-SF, non-imaginative answer.

True, in the reality we live in, dystopia seems to be the norm, and "more likely."

But this is #scifichat and that means it's about science fiction and fantasy and imagination.

The point of reading the literature of the fantastic is to learn to think "outside the box" - to break through cultural blinders -- to contemplate the impossible, the improbable, the unthinkable, the "unlikely" -- and to use those thoughts to change the world in such a way that those limits don't exist anymore.

In the 1950's, if you thought humans would actually walk on Earth's Moon, you were considered somewhere near the edge of sanity. Your opinion on everything else was automatically discounted. What was known to be impossible, was indeed impossible because it was known to be impossible (and disabled people were not treated well at all.)

In the 1960's - the decade of the first Star Trek TV series - not only was the idea that we could walk on the moon now considered possible and even do-able, but the idea that anything was actually impossible became suspect!

The 1970's was an era when even unfettered male dominance of everything important could be changed.

Science Fiction has been defined by an attitude, a "Sense of Wonder" that is deeply rooted in a philosophy that says:

What Humans Can Imagine; Humans Can Do

And the corollary is true. If you can't imagine it, you can't do it.

Science Fiction led the way out of the 1950's into a Golden Age for SF where more and more titles sold more and more copies - where real SF finally came to TV (not kiddie fare, and not comedy like My Favorite Martian, but Real SF like Star Trek).

The teens who grew up on SF novels that acknowledged no limits to the imagination, created the Internet, the World Wide Web, and many generations of computer chips, to wireless networks, and on and on into massive connectivity, not to mention GPS and Satellite weather reports (if you don't remember the 1950's, you don't appreciate today's weather reporting at all).

All that progress turned on just one tiny bit of philosophy.

If you've been reading my blogs here, you know that I place an inordinate emphasis on Philosophy.

Philosophy is far more important in human personal existence, cultural existence, societal existence and even the existence of our entire technological Civilization, than most people can imagine.

Writers, however, all have to be world class philosophers.

The entire art and craft of worldbuilding, and the whole power of the writer's knack of sucking a reader into a world not their own, rests on artistic manipulation of philosophy.

Philosophy turns up in every nook and cranny of a story, but dominates the THEME component.

There is one philosophical point that is the prime signature of the SF Genre, and it is bedrock basic to Romance Genre as well.

It's a very simple point, which means it's far more profound than most people would ever want to believe. Very personal.

It cuts to the quick. It twangs the heartstrings. It makes life worth while. It scares the shit out of most humans, so they won't think about it. I just said it above - do you remember or did you skip it?

What Humans Can Imagine; Humans Can Do

And the corollary. If you can't imagine it, you can't do it.

Now how does this apply to both SF and Romance?

Look at Star Trek: The Original Series. Captain Kirk was the only one to graduate the Academy having passed the Kobiyashi Maru exam.

How he did that is revealed. He cheated. He saw it was a no-win scenario, held in his heart the absolute conviction that there is no such thing as a no-win scenario, and he CHANGED THE RULES (hacked the computer and changed the program) so he could win.

That incident so defines Star Trek as PURE SF (despite all the compromises necessary to get it onto prime time TV where SF was totally disallowed) that the incident is recounted in the 2009 Star Trek movie.

In the movie, produced forty years after the first TV show, we see the young Kirk of an alternate universe rig the computer simulator and win the Kobiyashi Maru test.

It is made clear this is an alternate universe, so they could have just said this Kirk never cheated to win his commission. But they kept that incident intact because it defines the character. All Kirks in all universes think this way because it defines Kirk, and defines Star Trek as SF.

"Kirk" is the essence of science fiction because he does not accept limits on what is possible. If necessary, he'll change the structure of reality itself to actualize what he imagines.

Think hard about that attitude.

It's a very powerful philosophy, but it's also very dangerous. Scary.

Think about it, and see if it isn't the essence of what makes humans human, and that very essence is what scares (terrifies) many people, possibly to the point of being disabled in the ability to Love.

From the caveman inventing the wheel (which was independently invented, I think three times in different parts of the world) to some college students and professors inventing the internet -- just for fun, just to play computer games they programmed, toying with the stuff they worked on seriously in their day-jobs -- humans refuse to accept "impossible" for very long.

Now, think about the core essence of Romance.

Essentially, Romance is the pathway or open doorway to HAPPILY EVER AFTER, the HEA ending. You can't get to HEA without going through Romance.

What's the point of all the heart-rending, harrowing, emotional roller coaster plot if it does NOT produce an HEA ending?

Any sensible person will tell you that the HEA ending is a ridiculous cliche because in "real" life, it's impossible. Because! It's ridiculous because it's impossible.

Ho-ho!

We have found a juncture, a point of identity between SF and Romance as genres.

Both kinds of stories must end at achieving the IMPOSSIBLE -- and thereby changing the very definition of what is possible.

Once "the impossible" has been achieved, it becomes possible, and the boundaries that circumscribe our mental lives must expand to include this new achievement.

Philosophically, SF and Romance are identical.

So why is Romance still unworthy of vast public respect?

See my blog entry (also based on a Twitter conversation - this one on #scriptchat )
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-do-they-despise-romance.html

Read the comments on that blog entry and you'll find a comment about the HEA ending.

Note that if it's true that both SF and Romance must generate endings that violate the absolute boundaries of consensus reality, then the two genres are not now and never have been separate genres.

So there's no such thing as SFR.

You can't "mix" genres that are already identical.

If you mix two things that are identical, you end up with more of that one thing.

So SF has "proved itself" by having moved the boundaries of reality for many people now living. So they accept this new reality of iphones and thus most SF no longer seems ridiculous or crazy.

But apparently, no such "proof" yet exists for Romance.

Well, look at the state of the Family in the USA (maybe worldwide). Divorce is commonplace, over 50% in some demographics. And a famous couple ostensible happy for 40 years just announced a separation.

"Falling in Love" has led to bitter disappointment for many who married because of a romantic experience.

In their reality, there is no such thing as HEA.

And they've convinced all their friends and family there's no such thing as an HEA.

Anyone who believes there is such a thing as an HEA in real life is as "crazy" as those idiots in 1950 who kept writing stories about humans walking on other planets.

So, why do people accept "hard evidence" (the divorce rate) to "prove" their belief that something is impossible?

Hard evidence showed that people could not go into space because there was no material that could withstand the forces required to climb out of the gravity well of Earth. Not only that, but hard calculations showed clearly there was no fuel that could provide the thrust. The whole idea was stupid because it's impossible to do it.

So a generation got to work and produced materials and fuel, and political backing to get funding -- and we did it. We did the impossible. We did what had only been imagined by crazy people.

Do people today perhaps think that imagining the internet and making the Web happen is just about the Web, and not about human imagination?

Do they think the change in "reality" was just a fluke? Now we just adjust to a new reality, and it'll never change again -- certainly not as a result of crazy people imagining stuff?

Do they think "reality" is now fixed and you just have to live with it -- even if they are Star Trek fans, even Kirk fans?

How do people get such fixed notions about what is possible?

Do you suppose it's inculcated by the fiction they imbibe in youth?

And where does that fiction come from?

Writers.

We have a whole new generation of writers (and their near-cousins, editors) trying to find a way to make a living within the rules set down by a publishing industry now suddenly owned and operated by big corporations who think publishing should make a profit. (it never has in human history, but they're determined to do the impossible)

Therefore, in their pursuit of the impossibility of a profitable publishing industry, they have laid down the law about what is or is not possible in the fiction they've published.

Writers, accordingly, are trained by their editors to produce fiction that conforms to those rules of what is possible.

It's not so much the rules themselves that are sacred, but the entire attitude of conforming that has become untouchable.

I was astonished to run into that hard, fast, shiny, impenetrable barrier on (of all places!) #scifichat on twitter -- the one high-tech playground where one would suppose the philosophy of the internet founders (imagine the impossible; do it) would hold sway.

Of course the 140 character limit on twitter is not my native mode of expression, but I did my best and still had a hard time breaking a mental barrier composed of *EPIC FAIL* of writerly imagination.

You want to figure out why Romance doesn't get the respect it deserves as a genre - read this exchange I accidentally started in answer to @PennyAsh's comment on dystopia being more likely.

Think about the "impossible" HEA, where the HEA is a type of "Utopia" and think about how and why general readers reject all of romance because of the HEA while fans of romance read it because of the HEA.

Should we shrug and wall ourselves off into our own little corner of the universe? Or should we analyze what's really going on?

I had no intention probing for data to analyze when I made the following casual remark in answer @PennyAsh's response to the moderator's question about dystopia and utopia.

And I suspect few on #scifichat were thinking what I was thinking when I made this remark -- that the inability to "love," to fall in love, or to experience ROMANCE, is actually a very serious handicap, a disability of the most crippling kind. I said:

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat Frankly I'm more for utopia as a VISION -- but it's not the utopia that fails but the envisioner.

This started a long-long exchange with several people -- none of whom apparenly understood what I had meant (in 140 characters) by failure of the envisioner. All of these answers are (to me) clearly confined within a tiny box created by our culture's assumptions which must not be challenged.

So @MoonWolf95 commented back at me:

@MoonWolf95 @JLichtenberg One man's Utopia is another man's Nine Hells #scifichat

to which @PennyAsh answered

@PennyAsh @MoonWolf95 I agree, in a utopia we do not grow #scifichat

My hair stood on end. Writer's *EPIC FAIL* of imagination! How in the world can you discuss such abstract philosophical matters in 140 character bursts? So I said:

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat Naturally I disagree - at point of UTOPIA we actually finally START TO GROW (species infancy now) STARGATE ASCENSION
12:43 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg exactly, human nature will out. #scifichat
12:44 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat utopia concept - think Lensman Series, Arisians, visualization of the macrocosmic all. A utopia does growth starts
12:44 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

The next question was dropped in by the moderator:

@scifichat #scifichat Q8: Can cybernetic interfaces be a #disability themselves? #scifi #cyberpunk #computers #robot #science
12:45 PM Jun 4th via API

I thought that was the end of that exchange on Utopia. Nope.

@GeneDoucette #scifichat Utopia for ALL would A: be boring, B: be impossible to believe. Utopia for some at the cost of many would be more believable.
12:46 PM Jun 4th via web

Gene Ducette is a writer I'm going to be reading soon. David Rozansky answered my comment.

@DavidRozansky @JLichtenberg Brave New World? #scifichat
12:45 PM Jun 4th via TweetGrid in reply to JLichtenberg

So I'm thinking the Romance genre HEA really is saying "you can have this too" - i.e. Utopia for all. Boring? Impossible to believe? Enforced like BRAVE NEW WORLD?

*EPIC FAIL* of writerly imagination. How to explain that in 140 characters? And I'm talking to the smartest, most imaginative people around. How could this be happening?

Another writer/artist I'd just met last week, @MoonWolf95 adds:

@MoonWolf95 @JLichtenberg One man's Utopia is another man's Nine Hells #scifichat
12:43 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to JLichtenberg

@MoonWolf95, as @PennyAsh, likes the same books, authors, TV, that I do.

So @PennyAsh answers:

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg Utopia makes a wonderful vision problem is there's always someone who wants to enforce their vision on all #scifichat
12:47 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

And I'm thinking, "No, not in a real Utopia there isn't." But that's unimaginable, unthinkable, and probably unpublishable, right?

@JLichtenberg @MoonWolf95 @PennyAsh #scifichat "1's utopia; another's hell" - see, that's failure of writer's imagination! Stuck in past.
12:47 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to MoonWolf95

While the whole discussion veered into the next question and topic, I was stuck on this Utopia vision problem.

@JLichtenberg #scifichat 2 create NEW SF take unchallenged ancient truth and CHALLENGE IT (1 man's utopia; another's Hell)
12:48 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck

Remember, every post of mine goes to maybe 1200 people who aren't "listening" to #scifichat and so have no clue what I'm talking about. So I often RT (retweet) the comment I'm answering AND try to include the nucleus of the comment in my comment so it makes sense "out of the blue" to someone not interested in SF. Most of my followers are interested in writing and the whole entertainment industry from creation to business model.

So I said:

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat But what if NOBODY wanted to force their vision on others? THAT is essence of an SF question. WHAT IF...?
12:49 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg We need things to overcome otherwise we stagnate. It's a catch 22, utopia achieved breeds dissatisfaction #scifichat
12:49 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg The cycle starts all over again #scifichat
12:49 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

David Rozandky caught up with this side-chatter while main discussion went on with Disabilities and technology.

@DavidRozansky @JLichtenberg So Utopia, like myopia, is a vision disabiltiy. #scifichat
12:49 PM Jun 4th via TweetGrid in reply to JLichtenberg

And another writer chimed in answering me:

@madpoet @JLichtenberg I wouldn't call that a failure of writer's imagination. I'd call it an acknowledgment of human nature. @PennyAsh #scifichat
12:49 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

But I was busy answering David Rozansky:

@JLichtenberg @DavidRozansky #scifichat Yes, a "vision disability" afflicts our readers, and SF writers job is to open their eyes to unthinkable possib
12:51 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to DavidRozansky

To which @PennyAsh replied:

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg I'll have to ponder this more :) might fit in my Frankenstein story #scifichat
12:51 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

And I finally saw and responded to @madpoet

@JLichtenberg @madpoet #scifichat the whole point of SF/F is to NOT ACKNOWLEDGE LIMITS OF HUMAN NATURE - go where no man/person has gone b4
12:51 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to madpoet

And another writer chimed in (side-topic kept exploding)

@teresajusino @JLichtenberg #scifichat Not an ancient truth about SF so much as a truth about human nature. & yes, you can ignore that in SF, but why?
12:50 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to JLichtenberg

Why!!??? Ignore???? Oh, no, no -- but how to answer that?

@JLichtenberg @teresajusino #scifichat no, not "ignore" human nature, QUESTION OUR CONVICTION ABOUT WHAT IT IS. Always question!
12:52 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to teresajusino

And to @PennyAsh I finally answered:

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat Yes, it's definitely a Frankietein archetype challenge
12:52 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

@GeneDoucette @JLichtenberg I think I'd like a definition of "utopia" before going on. #scifichat
12:53 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to JLichtenberg

The rest of the folks had been discussing disabilities created by technology, so I connected the two threads of discussion thusly:

@JLichtenberg #scifichat disability created by science - the scholarly conviction that we KNOW human nature
12:53 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck

Again I was challenging the entire concept of "the impossible" being set up by academics, experts, or "everyone knows."

Meanwhile MoonWolf95 has been thinking hard:

@MoonWolf95 @JLichtenberg But human nature can be considered a disability by itself too? #scifichat
12:53 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to JLichtenberg

But I was busy answering @GeneDoucette

@JLichtenberg @GeneDoucette #scifichat tweet-size defn of utopia is opp of dystopia, I'd guess
12:54 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to GeneDoucette

@madpoet is still pursuing another line of thought and everyone's talking at once:

@madpoet @JLichtenberg Then we're no longer writing about humans at all. One branch of SF is the exploration of human reaction to the new. #scifichat
12:54 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@DavidRozansky @MoonWolf95 That's flawed thinking, don't you think? #scifichat
12:54 PM Jun 4th via TweetGrid in reply to MoonWolf95

@JLichtenberg @MoonWolf95 #scifichat human "nature" could be a LIMITATION which say, soul-spirit could fight to overcome. ESSENCE OF STORY IS CONFLICT
12:55 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to MoonWolf95

@GeneDoucette @JLichtenberg because if it's a variant of "everyone's happy and content" well... #scifichat
12:55 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to JLichtenberg

David Rozansky makes a brilliant remark

@DavidRozansky Utopia is world of no problems. Impossible to reach, yet we as humans always progress to solving problems. Paradox? #scifichat
12:55 PM Jun 4th via TweetGrid

@PennyAsh RT @JLichtenberg: @MoonWolf95 I see it more as a cycle moving society to the next level, either up or down #scifichat
12:56 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck

And I finally got back to @madpoet

@JLichtenberg @madpoet #scifichat this chat was about how disability is treated in SF/F which means not limited to "humans" no?
12:56 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to madpoet

@PennyAsh @MoonWolf95 Resistance to change and stagnation #scifichat
12:56 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to MoonWolf95

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg Absolutely or what if no one wanted to rebel? What if no one wants to have a revolution? #scifichat
12:58 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@MoonWolf95 @PennyAsh Oddly I finished a convo w/char in that very position this morning. #scifichat
12:58 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to PennyAsh

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat well, yes, "what if" there's no conflict -- crippled writer thinks "but must have; so can't be true" -- but WHAT IF???
12:59 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

I was trying to jar everyone out of their writerly training (that I'd participated in drumming into them) - THERE MUST BE CONFLICT and there is a very short menu of where to find conflict.

I was trying to get them to imagine Utopia and some serious thinking was going on in some minds.

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg I have my romance theme for Frankenstein, this will give a nice framework #scifichat
1:00 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

I was grinning as I answered @GeneDoucette

@JLichtenberg @GeneDoucette #scifichat I disagree. Utopia doesn't have to be boring. Can be huge challenges, projects, things to learn, levels to master
1:01 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to GeneDoucette

The moderator calls TIME! And I was way, way behind by this point.

@scifichat Tweet! That's the official end of #scifichat. But feel free to keep the conversation going.
1:01 PM Jun 4th via API

@JLichtenberg @madpoet #scifichat I got onto Utopia just being my usual abrasive, contrary, disagreeable self. Whatever "everyone" knows is untrue!
1:02 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to madpoet

@MoonWolf95 @JLichtenberg If you know this, by your own logic it too must be untrue :) #scifichat 1:03 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to JLichtenberg

Oho! I seem to have gotten a point across in 140 characters or less!

@JLichtenberg @MoonWolf95 #scifichat precisely - now you're getting it!
1:04 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to MoonWolf95

But, no, not yet as Gene has been thinking like a well trained writer who carefully stays within publishable bounds:

@Gene Doucette @JLichtenberg but where is your conflict? Heroes are nominally non-conformists. #scifichat
1:05 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @GeneDoucette #scifichat mtlitudinous conflicts in utopia - think ARISIANS vs. BOSKONE
1:07 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to GeneDoucette

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg Almost makes me want to write a utopian story :) #scifichat
1:08 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

Oho- SUCCESS! @PennyAsh is getting my point - thousands of novels about dystopia, not much about utopia except ones that reveal the flaw and destroy the Utopia or show it up for a sham. Utopia is Virgin territory (you should excuse the pun) for SF writers!

@madpoet @JLichtenberg @GeneDoucette Hang on - Boskone was a utopia? #scifichat
1:08 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

I do love talking to people who have read the books I've read!

@JLichtenberg @madpoet #scifichat -- no Arisians had evolved to a point where their lives were utopian (from our POV, not theirs)
1:10 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to madpoet

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg My to be written list is getting longer #scifichat
1:11 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg There's another good utopia/dystopia question, who's pov are we in? #scifichat
1:11 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

I also love talking to writers - whose point of view indeed! Love it!

@madpoet @JLichtenberg weren't they secretly manipulating humanity to develop the children of the lens? #scifichat
1:12 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @madpoet #scifichat Yes, Arisians bred human (and other) Lensmen to combat Boskone which ALSO manip'd human history 1:13 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to madpoet

@GeneDoucette @MoonWolf95 Fair enuf. I find utopian societies inherently unrealistic, and so tend to look for proof of dystopian underpinnings #scifichat
1:14 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to MoonWolf95

@MoonWolf95 @GeneDoucette To be honest, I think a Utopian society would implode from within naturally #scifichat
1:15 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to GeneDoucette

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat yes, and idea human nature is unchangeable and inescapable is preconceived idea
1:15 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

@MoonWolf95 @GeneDoucette But it comes back around to the potential causes, both of Utopia and its fall #scifichat
1:16 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to GeneDoucette

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat a real disability would be the 1 human whose "nature" was NOT what we learn in Lit classes frm Shakespear etc
1:16 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

@MoonWolf95 @JLichtenberg Enough so that whatever breaks out of the cycle of human nature by definition will no longer be "human" #scifichat
1:17 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to JLichtenberg

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg Good point :) How about utopia from the pov of those unhappy with it #scifichat
1:17 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@GeneDoucette @MoonWolf95 yes. Being discontent is an important aspect of being human. Either human and not utopian, or vice versa. #scifichat
1:17 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to MoonWolf95

Now earlier, discussing how to pitch novels @GeneDoucette had answered something I said with this comment:

@GeneDoucette @JLichtenberg ..I did that when I started with "okay, my narrator is a 60,000 y/o man." But I HATE the delimiting nature of genre #scifichat

"hate the delimiting nature of genre" - you all know where I stand on that, but I didn't have any time to open that topic with @GeneDoucette. His comment stuck in my mind, but I mis-remembered and attributed it to @madpoet so addressed this comment to @madpoet.

@JLichtenberg @madpoet #scifichat U dislike "genre delimiters" so I led U OUTof a limit U didn't know U were in (I'm so mean)
1:19 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to madpoet

Then I went back to bugging @MoonWolf95 (who didn't deserve it)

@JLichtenberg @MoonWolf95 #scifichat Well, are we so parochial that whatever breaks out of cycle of human history is so OTHER to be non-human?
1:20 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to MoonWolf95

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg Yes, not "normal" to be dissatisfied with your society/situation #scifichat
1:20 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@MoonWolf95 @JLichtenberg To be honest - yes. Look at MacCaffrey's "Pegasus", or X-Men comix #scifichat
1:21 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat POV of those unhappy with utopia - THAT is failure of imagination
1:22 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg So far yep :) Still pondering :) #scifichat
1:23 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat "old us vs. them question" -- precisely my point OLD QUESTION. We need NEW QUESTION.
1:24 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

Of course I was thinking of a Romance genre new question. But others were finally thinking.

@madpoet @JLichtenberg Would it be fair to say that the Utopians would regard that unhappiness as a disability? #BringinItBackAround #scifichat
1:24 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@MoonWolf95 @JLichtenberg "We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us" - us vs us question :) #scifichat
1:25 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @madpoet #BringinItBackAround #scifichat in a routine ho-hum SF story, Utopians wld regard unhappiness as disability.
1:25 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to madpoet

And more writers thinking hard-hard-HARD.

@Agiliste @JLichtenberg: @PennyAsh #scifichat "old us vs. them question" -- New Question: What if THEM is the way to go. Rampant individualism?
1:26 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@MoonWolf95 So what if a Utopian considered their world/life to not be Utopia and it should go further? #scifichat
1:26 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat

@JLichtenberg @MoonWolf95 #scifichat "us vs. us" also been done to death and studied by academics. Give them something they can't understand
1:26 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to MoonWolf95

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg The WHAT IFs are beginning to come together... #scifichat
1:26 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @Agiliste #scifichat "What if THEM is the way to go?" now Ur thinking SF/F!!! Don't stop thinking. Say what has never been said.
1:27 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to Agiliste

@PennyAsh I like it RT @Agiliste: @JLichtenberg: @PennyAsh #scifichat New Question: What if THEM is the way to go. Rampant individualism?
1:28 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck

@GeneDoucette @MoonWolf95 Fair enuf. I find utopian societies inherently unrealistic, and so tend to look for proof of dystopian underpinnings #scifichat
1:14 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to MoonWolf95

@MoonWolf95 @PennyAsh That's what we *do* at the end of the day - we play "What if?" with the Universe. Better than dice :) #scifichat
1:28 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to PennyAsh

@JLichtenberg @GeneDoucette #scifichat YOU GOT IT - U find utopia unrealistic. NOW write what would convince U you're wrong
1:29 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to GeneDoucette

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg Here's a WHAT IF: Utopia has achieved immortality. What if you don't want to live forever? #scifichat
1:30 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @MoonWolf95 @GeneDoucette #scifichat MoonWolf shld then write what would PREVENT utopia from imploding, see my point?
1:30 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to MoonWolf95

@JLichtenberg @PennyAsh #scifichat "what if you don't want to live forever" -- that is routine, grind the crank, writer-ly thinking. Find a NEW QUESTION
1:31 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to PennyAsh

@GeneDoucette @MoonWolf95 yes. Being discontent is an important aspect of being human. Either human and not utopian, or vice versa. #scifichat
1:17 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to MoonWolf95

@JLichtenberg @GeneDoucette #scifichat what if human nature changed so that discontent was NOT necessarily integral (it is now - show us NEW)
1:32 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to GeneDoucette

@MoonWolf95 @JLichtenberg You'd only end up with a paradox discovery - anything you do to preserve Utopia only hastens its collapse :) #scifichat
1:33 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @MoonWolf95 #scifichat SF thinking means to CHALLENGE that wall in Ur mind saying "only leads to collapse"
1:34 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to MoonWolf95

@DavidRozansky @JLichtenberg Human trait of needing to search for new things is vital part of us. So seeking unobtainable utopia is...utopia. #scifichat
1:35 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@GeneDoucette @JLichtenberg Now that's a nice writing exercise. #scifichat "NOW write what would convince U you're wrong"
1:35 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to JLichtenberg

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg The crank is grinding :) have a fledgeling plot in mind #scifichat
1:36 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@Agiliste RT @JLichtenberg: @Agiliste #scifichat now Ur thinking SF/F!!! << The voices in my head are suggesting that may head towards Mad Max...
1:37 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck

@JLichtenberg @GeneDoucette #scifichat having new horizons could be utopia -- but WHAT IF UTOPIA IS ACTUALLY ATTAINABLE?
1:38 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to GeneDoucette

@GeneDoucette @JLichtenberg I think the Talking Heads said it best: "heaven is a place where nothing ever happens." #scifichat
1:38 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to JLichtenberg

@JLichtenberg @DavidRozansky #scifichat Here's a heretical thought - suppose our world 2day is actually utopia for humans? (been done, I think)
1:39 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to DavidRozansky

@MoonWolf95 @JLichtenberg Utopia is what you decide it is for you. The rest of the world can go find its own :) #scifichat
1:39 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat in reply to JLichtenberg

@DavidRozansky Can't wait to put #Dystopia on the list for #scifichat topics.
1:41 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck

@MoonWolf95 *wonders if @JLichtenberg is a clone of Jubal Harsaw* *grins* #scifichat
1:42 PM Jun 4th via TweetChat

(no, actually I'm just mean and relentless when I get into a writing brainstorming session)

@PennyAsh So does Utopia = Happy and Dystopia = Unhappy? Methinks not :) #scifichat
1:44 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck

@johndejordy Utopia is attainable for the individual, not a group because everyone's concept of what it might be differs. #scifichat
1:44 PM Jun 4th via web

@PennyAsh @johndejordy But what if it is attainable for a group? #scifichat
1:48 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to johndejordy

@PennyAsh @JLichtenberg So, what if the only people granted immortality are lifers. The general public isn't allowed it #scifichat
1:51 PM Jun 4th via TweetDeck in reply to JLichtenberg

@johndejordy That is why I say utopia would be for the individual. Mine would is simplistic, to live without any physical pain - and ice cream #scifichat
1:57 PM Jun 4th via web

We were all posting so hot and heavy that twitter blocked us out of posting more. The chat only went an hour or so beyond the stopping time!

Look over that discussion substituting "HEA" for Utopia.

As noted in the comments to my blog post on "Why Do "They" Hate Romance?"
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-do-they-despise-romance.html

--- the world out there puts the HEA outside of the bounds of the possible. HEA is impossible just like Utopia.

Even the most imaginative SF writers can't encompass the basic concept. How could you expect their readers to approach it?

Worse, it's not just the HEA concept that's outside the bounds of thinkable thoughts -- it's the very idea of thinking outside the bounds of the thinkable that's unthinkable.

Reverse your point of view to looking at the SFR field from the side of the Romance writer, and you'll find exactly the same problem.

The romance writer imagination *Epic Fail* comes in trying to imagine the world WITHOUT the HEA -- and at the same time can't even think of the possibility of a technological advance (an SF postulate) that might challenge or involve the HEA concept.

We can mash in the Horror genre with Romance and SF if we begin to think about the reason that the general readership rejects the HEA (it's implausible).

"What if ..." the inability to fall in love, to experience Romance, to navigate that blurry mental state into the safe haven of an HEA life (for real) using the force of Love is actually a very widespread inability.

"What if ..." a huge portion of today's people are suffering from this disability - a disability so widespread that it's considered the norm?

If that were the case, what could fiction writers do about it?

We'd have a big job ahead of us.

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