Must Fiction Have Conflict?

I recently read FANTASY: HOW IT WORKS, by Brian Attebery, a distinguished scholar of fantasy and science fiction. In addition to the solid content, he has a highly readable style. While I can't unreservedly recommend this book to every fan, given the price (but still very reasonable for a product of a university press), anybody who enjoys in-depth analysis of fantasy in all its dimensions would probably find it more than worth the cost. Some topics include realism and fantasy, myths and fantasy, gender and fantasy (mostly focusing on male characters), and the politics of fantasy. Of particular interest to me is the chapter titled, "If Not Conflict, Then What?"

Advice to writers almost always maintains that a story can't exist without conflict. Attebery is the first critic I've encountered who casts doubt on that alleged truism. In fact, he flatly states, "This may be good advice for getting published, but it isn't true." Conflict, he points out, is simply a single metaphor, implying combat. Among other metaphors he suggests are dissonance, friction, and dance. He maintains there's only one "essential requirement for narrative," which is "motivated change over time."

This discussion intrigued and reassured me, since the necessity for goal-motivation-conflict in a properly structured story is usually taken for granted. Reflecting on examples of my own work, I realize some of my fiction contains what could be called "conflict" only by stretching the term almost out of recognition. Suppose we subsitute "goal-motivation-obstacles"? Marion Zimmer Bradley, after all, summarized the universal plot as, roughly, "Johnny gets his behind caught in a bear trap and how he gets out." Elsewhere, I've seen the essence of story encapsulated as: The protagonist wants something. What's keeping them from getting it?

For example, my contemporary fantasy, "Bunny Hunt" (to be published as an e-book on April 10), features a protagonist whose long-range goal is to have a baby, a wish gaining new urgency because she and her husband are over thirty. Her problem is that they've been trying for a while with no result. The impediment, her possible infertility, might fall under one of the classic types of "conflict," person versus nature—if we count her own body as part of "nature." But that interpretation seems to strain the definition of "conflict." The short-term goal, to help a rabbit woman through a potentially fatal childbirth (no more details, sorry—spoilers!), involves problems that might possibly be labeled "person versus nature," but again that reading feels like a stretch.

For me, I believe thinking in terms of the more general formula "goal-motivation-obstacles" will make plotting future fiction projects easier.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

How to Use Tarot and Astrology in Science Fiction Series Part 6 - Confronting Change

How to Use Tarot and Astrology in Science Fiction Series

Part 6

Confronting Change

Previous parts in How to Use Tarot and Astrology in Science Fiction Series are indexed at the bottom of the index post about Astrology

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

In 2020, we are up against the forces of change focused on governments, country sovereignty, borders being moved, annexation of lands, ousting of Kings, plus the looming promise of major shifts in how management decisions are made -- Big Data plus Artificial Intelligence.

Privacy seems gone as facial recognition (however flawed) is deployed.  The recent Coronavirus mutation brought scenes of people marching down airport corridors, outlined by a camera that revealed their body temperature (looking for those running a fever).

The world has already changed -- most haven't noticed it yet.

Humans are averse to change.  Just ask a two year old!

Humans want "the world" to function the way they think it does.

On the other hand, people also want to change the world to make it function the way they want it to function, not as they think it does right now.

On the third hand, people change their opinions throughout a lifetime.

In Part 5 of this series, we looked at "The Story of a Life" -- biography.

The closer a fictional narrative resembles the form and shape of a real life, the more informative and thought-provoking it will be for readers.

The Generational Novel or Series, or Vampire Romance, novels with settings that span long story-arcs, centuries in Time, can put the reader's current world into a new perspective, suggesting new solutions to a reader in a quandary about their current life.

The narrative selected and spun by current news media is not the only narrative in dynamic play at any given moment because generations overlap, interpenetrate, and blend through transitions.

2020 is one of those blending times -- and it could be this whole decade that reveals the swirling dynamic change.

People living through this see it from the perspective of their own generation, and each sees a portion of the truth (like the Blind Men And The Elephant -- though I'd expect the Blind Women and the Elephant to reveal a different story).

Right now, the media portrait of the world appears to be ramming many countries, including the USA, into civil war or some semblance of blood in the streets.

People living through this, people who are your audience looking for you to escort them one an adventure into a different world, are disturbed by the daily confrontation with CHANGE in their everyday life.

In January, 2020, during the Trump Impeachment trial in the Senate, the following article was sited on Facebook:

https://www.newsweek.com/us-showing-many-genocide-warning-signs-donald-trump-expert-very-worried-1483817

-----quote-------
Politically though, Tannehill noted the U.S. trend towards divisive rhetoric and policies under President Donald Trump, who has been repeatedly accused of various forms of racism and has pursued a nativist agenda.

"The politicians enacting it are populists who benefit from stirring Us vs. Them narratives, placing blame for the woes of the nation on others who are somehow less worthy," she wrote. "They yearn for a mythological past [without] these people. It's a highly viable tactic for shoring up support."

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

Writers who study these broad trends are seeing a slide toward genocidal wars -- not just in the USA but world-wide.

This awkward trial of a sitting President is just one component of the thrust of CHANGE at the deepest level of government -- Constitutional level change.

The consensus seems to be that if what he did wasn't a crime, then it ought to be.  We have to do something about this -- that's the Pluto in Capricorn manifestation in the spotlight of media attention.

So how can a Romance writer approach the audience living through having the rug pulled out from under them?

On Facebook, I commented on a thread generated by that Newsweek article posted by someone who sees it as driving the USA toward a genocidal war, thusly:

If we accept a straight line extrapolation, yes, but humanity lurches ahead in a zigzag, often reversing course for a few centuries.

Consider this LONG PERSPECTIVE article from a Time writer.

https://time.com/5770140/millennials-change-american-politics/

That article traces the interactions between generations as Millennials sweep the reins of power from the Baby Boomer generation (as usual ignoring the Silent Generation).

I collect articles like that one on Millennials in one of my Flipboard Magazines, Pluto in Capricorn

https://flipboard.com/@jacquelinelhmqg/pluto-in-capricorn-national-narrative-so8cs2k4y

Pluto in Capricorn is the "magazine" where I collect articles of the far-far past of Ancients, current events, astronomy, astrophysics (FTL drive foundations, plus what we might discover and what we have to go explore), and space travel. That magazine also includes some genetics (most of which I put in a different magazine), Volcanos and other items that might destroy this current Ancient civilization.

PLUTO IN CAPRICORN is where we are now, and it is about CHANGE IN GOVERNMENT, shifting borders (we did that in Channel's Destiny, moved the Territory border to make room for Householdings).

This item on generation gap, shifting views, is related to a Blog post on writing craft I did a long while back:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html

About halfway down that blog post is a list of what signs Pluto was in at various points in history and how that played out in "generation gap" thinking.

Get a good grip on this principle, and the spectacle of NEWS today will suddenly make sense.

OK, maybe not less alarming sense, but a kind of sense that clues you in on where to dodge the falling hammer of generation shifts.

It is a double-pattern, an 84 year cycle superimposed on a 248 years, with a transition superimposing one on the other every 165 years (or so).

Kids are born continuously, not usually in waves (like Baby Boomers), so the concept of "generations" all moving in the same way is nonsense, but where the outer planets are when a kid is born indicates a predilection for an affinity to a particular generation's response to life.

All that is modified by that individual kid's own characteristics then reshaped and maybe hammered by environment. None of this is cut-and-dried. Living life is an art-form.

A writer who understands how the portrait of a civilization morphs with the cycles of Pluto can build a world that seems real to people living today.

Consider, the USA is approaching the first Pluto return (to where Pluto was in Capricorn when this nation was born) in history.  With Pluto in mid-Capricorn, we created a NEW FORM of government by blending two old forms (democracy and republic) while firmly excluding the concept of Monarchy or any other form of dictatorship.

People are thinking about Civil War, but it could be an actual Revolutionary War complicated by the advent of the Internet, Artificial Intelligence, and Apple's War For Privacy From Government Intrusion (even if you're a dead criminal.)

Even science fiction writers may not be thinking "big" enough.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

An Ethical Duty of Civility?

The National Conference of State Legislatures publishes a magazine called (appropriately) the STATE LEGISLATURE MAGAZINE. Their July/August 2019 issue contains an article titled, "Is There an Ethical Duty to be Civil to Our Rivals?" My spontaneous answer is, "Yes, of course, you betcha." And, indeed, one recent survey finds that 93% of Americans believe our nation has a "civility problem." So, if the vast majority of Americans think we need more civility, why do we have a shortage of it? The article points out that inflammatory remarks and "negative campaign strategies" often backfire, causing the public to react against the perpetrators of "uncivil attacks." When this kind of behavior becomes too prevalent, it not only lowers the general tone of political discourse but tends to damage "the public perception of government and public officials overall." The article does suggest, however, that sometimes a "middle ground" between civility and "extreme incendiary language"—flavoring one's assaults on the opposing position with a dash of snark—can be effective for winning support.

Granted that the past is a different country, nevertheless I feel a certain nostalgia for the historical eras—if they actually existed—when even men preparing to kill each other in duels exchanged challenges in unfailingly courteous language. It costs nothing to be polite instead of rude, and claiming the high ground makes one's opponent look worse in comparison. Does this constitute an "ethical duty"? I think so, because a pervasive attack-mode verbal culture may lead to concretely harmful actions. Ben Shapiro, by the way, makes a distinction between "inflammatory" speech (which, he acknowledges, is still wrong) and speech that actively incites to violence. This strikes me as a valid distinction in principle, but in practice it seems that drawing the line between the two would be difficult and delicate.

Maybe the unpleasantness all too prevalent in political discourse arises from a version of the Prisoners' Dilemma, which you've probably heard of. Here's the Wikipedia explanation of it:

Prisoners' Dilemma

In short (if I understand the setup correctly), the prisoners will achieve the best outcome for both of them if both behave generously. Since they aren't allowed to communicate, though, if each assumes the other will turn informer then betrayal appears to be the optimum strategy. Do politicians and pundits fear that if they're the first to act nice to their opponents, they'll place themselves in a position of weakness?

What would highly advanced extraterrestrial visitors think about the behavior of our public figures? Imagine a society like that of Vulcan, or what Vulcan at least claims to be. Its purely rational citizens would argue the merits of each controversy on logical grounds, and theoretically the discussion would reveal the obvious solution to the problem, which rational beings would naturally agree to carry out. A hive-mind species would presumably have no trouble reaching consensus quickly, because they would all have the same factual knowledge and complete access to each other's opinions and motives. Klingons, on the other hand, would probably wonder why we don't settle political disagreements through trial by combat. Now, although that wouldn't be rational, it would certainly make election campaigns more exciting while not necessarily discourteous.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Targeting A Readership Part 15 Why Readers Feel They Have Outgrown A Genre

Targeting a Readership

Part 15

Why Readers Feel They Have Outgrown A Genre

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts in this series are indexed at:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/index-to-targeting-readership-series-by.html

In Part 14, we noted in passing how resolving a subconscious conflict can change a reader's taste in fiction.

People grow up reading Romance genre, then just drift away once they have found their spouse.  Others, hitting hard going in marriage, drift back to reading Romance, but look for a different sort of setting, or problem or issue.

Romance novels used to serve only the young women who wanted wish-fulfillment fantasy come true.  Today's older women readers were once just such young girls, but now they want a different story.

One such popular new story is, the divorced or widowed heroine makes her own way in a tough world and becomes a kickass heroine in her own right -- then meets her Soul Mate.

Another whole panoply of stories have emerged in the Vampire Romance and other Paranormal creatures women are fascinated by.

Each of these sub-genres emerges, sells huge for years, then submerges, perhaps surviving with a smaller readership.

Why does this happen?  

As a reader (all writers are voracious readers)  you know you have times when you're not in the mood for this kind of book, but will leap into that kind.

Moods come and go, but through life the mood that predominates will shift from one kind of book to another, and yet another.

One theory seems to cover most all of the mysterious changes people undergo with age.  And it's all about Conflict.

We say that as you become old, you don't become different, but you become "more-so."  Whatever traits persist and dominate across the phases of life, from High School, to College, to first job, to Marriage, to kids, to empty-nest, become engrained, perfected, showcased as seminal to the personality.

Or put another way, every human has within both a Wolf and a Tiger fighting for their life.  Which one will win?  The one you feed the most.  It's up to you to choose which of your traits will predominate.

In other words, as we mature, the fight-to-the-death within us begins.  Everyone has an internal conflict, and as that conflict see-saws back and forth, we make irrevocable life-course choices, and sometimes have to ditch an entire decade or more of investment, and just take off in another direction.

As we wrestle with these decisions, mostly on a subconscious level, we search for clues in our real world environment, and we search for interpretations of our real world environment in our fiction.

Different genres specialize in different sorts of Conflict, but all genres of fiction focus "story" around a "conflict."

Conflict is the essence of story. 

We are fascinated by certain stories because the Conflicts that drive those stories are derived from the same Master Theme  that roils around underneath our real world lives.  There's a resonance, a harmony, that energizes the subconscious issues that discomfort us.

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

Readers and writers discuss theme by sharing a story, walking miles in the Main Character's moccasins, and ultimately in addressing and resolving Conflict.

The fictional piece is energized and driven by a Conflict as ferocious as the conflict inside all humans.  Once fed enough, one element in that conflict will prevail, and the conflict will be over.  Peace, inner peace, and very often peace in the surrounding world will prevail.

It will prevail until a new conflict is joined, a new topic, a new problem in life.

Sometimes readers continue or resume reading a favorite genre, entertained by the predictable, reliable, firm resolution of the conflict.  But very often, readers will feel they have outgrown a genre because the conflict that genre specializes seems like something only a child or young adult would still be wrestling with.

Writers often come to writing late enough in life that they have resolved some conflicts, and experienced the peace that brings.  Such writers may want to share that peace with readers.

It doesn't work on a commercial level.  It can work with family and friends who have been associated with the writer through the fight and resolution, but it doesn't  "sell."

A personal story, a memoir, or autobiography is of interest only to those who have some knowledge of who this person is.  The main character in a world of fiction has to be introduced to the reader, all fresh and new, yet somehow familiar.

The "yet somehow familiar" (or 'give me something the same but different') part is the Conflict and the underlying theme that fires up that Conflict.

New writers, I have found, most often sidestep, duck, or ignore their Character's internal conflict.

I'm not the only one who has noticed this common issue among new writers.

Here is an excerpt from a blog I follow on Twitter about Screenwriting.

https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/the-power-of-conflict-in-storytelling-178d09105c5b

--------quote------
A few years ago, I posted this question on my blog: Why do we find conflict entertaining? The responses were fascinating and informative:

• Conflict is interesting: In real life, we tend to socialize with likeminded people, so when we see characters in a movie who disagree, argue and fight, that is different and therefore stimulating.
• Conflict is speaking one’s mind: In our daily lives, we often have to bite our tongue, but movie characters can give voice to things we wish we had the opportunity and courage to say.
• Conflict involves risk: Whereas we may play it safe in our regular routines, we never know what could happen with characters involved in a conflict, an unpredictable dynamic implicit in every fight.
• Conflict requires stakes: Characters don’t get into conflict unless there is something of importance at stake.
• Conflict is about goals: One character wants one thing, another character wants something different.
• Conflict is a battle of wills: There is always the question, “Who is going to win” which makes for an intriguing scenario.
• Conflict is emotional: When characters are engaged in a struggle, it is not a mere exercise in logic, but charged up with feelings.

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

Notice how superficial these answers are, but every one of them would satisfy a professional Editor at a traditional publishing house.  They are not, however, useful from the writer's operational perspective to answer the question:  How do you DO THAT?

Think about each of those answers and about which sorts of Themes can best drive one of those conflict hooks.

Each of those reasons for being interested by conflict defines a Readership.

Which readership is naturally yours?

Feed the Readership you want to prevail in the real world Conflicts that are tearing you apart inside.

Ponder all that we've discussed about Theme, how to define it, how to use it, and how to blend it seamlessly, integrate it into a work of fiction to make that fiction a work of Art.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-learn-to-use-theme-as-art.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-you-can-do-in-novel-that-you-cant.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/plot-vs-story.html

Once you have your Theme you will not be conflict-shy, pulling back or tip-toeing around a Conflict your Characters must resolve.

As you progress through life, you will evolve new Themes and new conflicts.  Literary critics define "periods" in a writer's life, and whether they know it or not, they are tracing that writer's personal resolution of personal internal conflicts.

When you're finished with a Conflict, you are finished.  You are at Peace.  And Peace is not Story.  Peace is what happens between Stories that happen to Characters.

Peace is not "Happily Ever After."  Many who disbelieve in the Happily Ever After ending think happiness is perpetual peace.  It isn't.  And that, in itself, constitutes a Theme Bundle -- an entire array of statements about reality.

If you, as a writer, want to share the experience of peace from conflict with your readers, learn to share the moment of resolution of a conflict.  That resolution-moment is the climax of your story and your plot (in the same Event, at the same moment, on the same page).  How and by what a conflict is resolved is your Theme.  The theme generates the conflict and resolves it.

Conflict isn't interesting for any of the reasons in the quoted list.  Conflict is interesting because of what/how/when it RESOLVES.  That's part of the reason viewers want a remake of Season 8 of Game of Thrones.

Here is a post on nesting Themes, creating a theme bundle that is large enough to support a long-running series (novels, TV shows, spinoffs).

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-4.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Conflict Integration Part 6 - A Character Under Influence by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Conflict Integration

Part 6

A Character Under Influence

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts in this Theme-Conflict Integration Series are Indexed at:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/05/index-to-theme-conflict-integration.html

One of the oldest story driving conflicts is termed, "Man against himself."  But of course, today, we read that as "Person against self," stripping it of sexual innuendo.

Women can oppose their own interests subconsciously, as well as men (maybe better!)

And of course non-humans might very likely be the same.

The most interesting non-humans would, of course, lack the ability to be their own worst enemy -- in many ways, Spock was originally depicted as such an alien.

So to depict a Romance between a human who can thwart their own interests and a non-human who lacks that trait (and thus doesn't really understand it), one must first examine the issue of "Internal Conflict" and how such a conflict is resolved to reader satisfaction.

Once the writer has a clean, easily expressed theory of how humans oppose themselves internally (and why, and when), then it becomes easy to design the Alien Soul Mate for the human main character.

Concocting a Science Fiction theory of human psychology has at least two main parts:

A) Name the two parts inside humans that could possibly conflict?

B) Name the part that wins.

We have extant theories of Conscious/Subconscious, Yin/Yang, and Body/Soul.

Maybe all of them operate simultaneously -- or maybe none of them are true, just useful approximations.

Choose which maybe you want to use for your Worldbuilding.

Yes, these 3 choices for the 2 parts of humans that cause inexplicable behavior (like falling in love, for example), define 3 separate and different "worlds" you can build.  They are elements of world building, and each defines a sort of "magic" that can (or can't) work in that world.

Humans have been striving to define "what it is" inside us that gives us such trouble, as individuals and whole societies, for thousands of years.

So choose (or invent) a dichotomy to insert into the axioms defining the world you will tell your story within, and then choose the Rules of Engagement -- how they fight, why, and to what end.

The most obvious and natural one for a Science Fiction Romance world is Body/Soul.

Romance is about the sweeping force that dissolves the personality's bonds to "reality" -- to the practical, the everyday, to responsibility (Saturn) and accountability (Mercury ruling Virgo).

People swept off their feet falling "in love" behave unrealistically (Romeo and Juliet), immaturely, or as if they are ignorant of the strictures of reality (an office affair between a Boss and a Janitor, when both are married-with-children).

Romance (Neptune) dissolves common sense, and makes everything and anything possible.  The mental "executive function" becomes paralyzed.  There's nothing inside, no self-discipline, that will stop you, and no awareness of how you will feel about or deal with the consequences.

You do what you want and to hell with the consequences.

That is a favorite excuse in Romance novels for having sex with an inappropriate (or forbidden) individual.

So when Neptune transits hit full force, igniting ferocious sexual urges between a couple, Neptune wins.  There is no internal conflict because the Executive Function of the personality is not functioning.

NO CONFLICT = NO STORY

Thus the "irresistible hunk" story is not actually a story at all.  If the hunk truly is irresistible, there is nothing to oppose his advances, nothing there saying "no!"

Or vice-versa, a guy can run across a woman he can't resist.

But if he can't resist, there is no story to tell.

Story (and plot) are all about RESOLVING CONFLICT, so if there is no conflict there is no resolution, thus no satisfaction in reading about it.

So in a universe where humans are constructed with an internal dichotomy best expressed as Body/Soul, it is the physical (pheromones, physical arousal) of the Body that can (and often does) conflict with the spiritual fulfillment the Soul seeks.

You can use the "model" of Body vs. Soul to create Soul Mates whose bodies won't cooperate.

Romeo and Juliet is again a good analogy, as they were spiritually attracted Soul Mates born on opposite sides of a feud.  Hatfields and McCoys.  Israeli and Palestinian.

Throughout history there have been many political conflicts conquered by Romance.  Kings married their daughters to sons of the main enemies to settle disputes, and history records how many generations hence that settlement lasted.  Very few historical texts detail how the daughter-and-son actually felt about it.  Those novels are being written now.

The body can be born a non-human on some other planet (or space station) arriving at Earth's solar system carrying a Soul which is the Mate to a Soul born human on Earth.

Such a "love" has to conquer all the seething dynamics of First Contact, or worse, the ending of a long interstellar war.

Now we come to the Influence part.  If you choose Body/Soul as your world building dichotomy, then you must decide (sometimes by writing the whole book first) which "wins."  Or more broadly put, how the conflict resolves.

What are the options for resolving a conflict between civilizations?

Well, we have a pattern laid down for us thousands of years ago, which has repeated a few times, and may actually turn up again as we make a First Contact with non-humans.

The story is told in the Bible, and by Hollywood (Cecil B. DeMille), as THE EXODUS.

And the style of the conflict resolution writers can rip from this classic, is Persuasion.

As humans, pure physical bodies, basic primate species, we behave toward each other in a "dominance" pattern, always conquering, opposing, WINNING.  It's in video games, sports, politics, war.  You just have to win.  It starts in infancy with screaming until large hands bring relief.

Toddlers learn to insist until they get their way.  Toddlers learn that Might Makes Right because parents will oppose their insistence with forces the Toddler can't match (pick him up and just put him in the car seat.)

Sometimes, parents have the leisure to distract the toddler or just let the screaming exhaust him.  But the parent always wins.

Later, the parent may try persuasion, but by then the twig is bent and the tree growing robustly.

Basically, primates survive toddlerhood by having their Will overridden.  Toddlers who win the battle run out in the street and get run over by a car.  It happens.  All our toddlers would do that, given the chance.  Having that Will thwarted by Adults grabbing him up just teaches Might Makes Right.

After Toddlerhood, other lessons split our population into those who bend under force, and those who fight to the death.

Any given individual may choose (free will) either strategy, any combination, or invent a new one to try.

But in the end, how we influence each other comes down to a dominance exercise.  How do we get each other to behave properly?

Today's readership is swamped with discussions about violence and the use of violence.  The language of violence is used in News Headlines to describe mere words said to or about someone.  "...Ripped Into..."  "...blasted..."

This is all about one human forcing another to change an opinion or course of action.

In The Exodus story, we see 10 "plagues" (natural disasters, we'd call it today).  The conflict that makes this a "story" is between the Creator of the Universe and Pharaoh.  They vie for possession of a "people" -- the Jews.

Having granted humans "free will," the Creator first demonstrated the reason Pharaoh should release the Jews as that He was better at controlling Nature than Pharaoh's Magicians.  That went on for 5 plagues and Pharaoh tended to give in, but didn't change his opinion.  Then the Creator argued for 5 more plagues to persuade Pharaoh to change his own mind.  The Sages point out that we can learn from Pharaoh's eventual agreement that Persuasion works better than logical equations about brute force.

Of course, we also learn that Pharaoh sent chariots after the fleeing mixed multitude (which included a lot of Egyptians throwing in their lot with the winner.)  Their fate is depicted by Cecil B. DeMille even though Cecil got the "parting" of the sea wrong.

Nevertheless, original sources notwithstanding, all of your readers will probably visualize the Hollywood version of the parting of the sea and wipe-out of the chariots.  The general public has been persuaded.  The general public is under the influence of visual artists whose tools are limited.

The general public, your reader, does not fight that influence.

So, how does one Character exercise Influence over another in such a way that the influencer "wins?"

Which prevails, Body or Soul?

The human primate Body uses Force -- force of muscle, force of size, force of authority bestowed by Kings or Presidents, force of pheromones, force of intellect (strategy, tactics, blackmail), force of Power (I'll make you a star, or ruin your career).

The Body argues by making it abundantly clear that it is to your advantage to do something against your better interests.  Go along to get along.  Bend (as Pharaoh did) then snap back when attention is elsewhere.  Agree to anything under duress, defy later.

The Soul argues right and wrong, ethics, morals, living a Code of Conduct which is to the advantage of the Soul even when it costs the Body dearly.  The Soul adopts Causes, Crusades, Movements, Idealism, Aspirations.  But the Soul habitually Loves -- loves all humans, loves all Bodies, even when they are staunchly opposed to the Soul's purposes.

Which wins?

In Romance genre, including Science Fiction Romance, Love Conquers All is the basic theme, the tenet of all the worlds that belong to the genre.

Soul Mates always gravitate toward each other, like two magnets, snap!  Bodies have to accept that, even when it thwarts the body's purpose.  Souls win, if not in this life, then in the next incarnation.

Bodies, brains, minds woven of the stuff of this concrete reality often embrace "being influenced" -- which essentially means adopting the Group's prevailing opinion, agreeing with opinions shouted forcefully in public, accepting the opinion of "authority" or "experts" who know better than you do.

Souls, aware of being eternal, do not need to "fit in" to survive.  Souls strive and struggle to get their Bodies to live up to ideals, like a horse trainer "breaking" a horse -- or perhaps the wiser ones use less force and more persuasion, luring the physical body with physical pleasure as reward.

Souls resist Influence; Bodies seek it.

Humans have both a Soul and a Body welded inextricably to the physical world.  Any human will sometimes fight being Influenced, and other times adopt the Influencer's ideas as their own.  In other words, humans flip-flop between body and soul dominant.  Any given human might flip-flop on you at any given time -- and not be able to explain why they changed.

If you start a story in Chapter 1 with a Character succumbing to the Influence of another Character, the end of the last Chapter, the very last page, depicts the first Character throwing off that influence.

That is the innate structure of "story" -- short, medium or long -- the beginning is where the two forces that will conflict to generate the plot (to generate the deeds, motives, and Events) first come into contact.

Thus choosing your opening scene as the point at which one Character willingly adopts the opinion of another, you telegraph to the reader that Influence is the conflict.

The Theme is what readers read for, whether they know it or not.  The feeling of satisfaction at The End is powered by dawning comprehension of the Theme.

The master theme of Romance is Love Conquers All.  But it has many sub-themes - and in fact, almost any theme can be subordinated to Love Conquers All and still remain congruent to everyday reality.  I've never found a theme that can't fit Love Conquers All.

If the story opens with a Character Influenced by (an equal, a superior, Good, Evil), the story is about the gyrations necessary to fight off that Influence.

Once free, the Character may choose to adopt that same opinion, and might even become an Influencer disseminating that opinion.

But the story ends where the Character is free of Influence.

THEME: Humans must be free to choose.

THEME: Humans always choose wrong.

THEME: Humans can't be trusted to behave well.

THEME: Alien Values Are Better For Humans Than Ancient Human Values!

THEME: Non-humans are incompatible with humans.

THEME: Certain non-humans aren't so bad.

THEME: It's all right to be human.

THEME: It is not all right to be human.

Keep going to find your best theme that reveals the natural laws of your world and how those laws conflict or contradict each other, creating Characters who fight to exist in your world.

If the inner conflict is Body vs Soul, then the Themes can be fabricated from adages such as the proverbial, "If there are two wolves fighting inside you, which one wins?" "The one you feed the most."

So if you feed your Soul the most, practicing idealistic decision-making, then your Soul will dominate your body.  If you feed your body the most, indulging carnal appetites, then your body will dominate your soul.  Is that true in your fictional world?  Do your Characters have a choice which to feed the most?

In other words,
THEME: Humans are creatures of habit.
THEME: Humans rebel against habit, periodically.  (Uranus transit; mid-life crisis)
THEME: Humans prize freedom from the influence of other humans.
THEME: Humans prize the influence of other humans who (fill in the characteristic, sweet, kind, beautiful, rich, powerful...).

Always remember your THEME is what the main characters' thinking finally evolves into, not what they start out thinking when the conflict is joined, or before the conflict is resolved. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Index To Theme-Conflict Integration

Index To 

Theme-Conflict Integration

Blog Series

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

The posts labeled with two or more techniques are more "advanced" than those labeled with just one, as it is expected the individual techniques have been mastered individually.  Many selling writers (even best selling) have novels published with a lack of blending of the techniques - and many readers enjoy them.  The long lasting, much reprinted, classics usually have a core of a blend of techniques so smooth that academics can't factor them back out to individual techniques.  As a result, much academic work has been published labeling "the theme" of a given novel as something which it is, in fact, not.  The thing is, the author often doesn't know what the theme of a given novel is until maybe 20 years after publication.

What you think your theme is, and what it actually is may differ.  It is not necessary for the author to be correct, but it is necessary to be consistent.

Conflict is the essence of Story -- but theme is the essence of Art.

Here are posts on integrating the technique of "theme" with the technique of "conflict" with emphasis on Romance between highly contrasted individuals (such as human-alien)

Part 1 - Battle of the Sexes
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-conflict-integration-part-1.html

Part 2 - A Grifter, A Shyster, and a Priest Walk Into A Bar
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/05/theme-conflict-integration-part-2.html

Due to a numbering error, there is a Part 2A about Designing A Conflict
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/06/theme-conflict-integration-part-2.html

Part 3 - Battle of the Generations (the Generation Gap)
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/03/theme-conflict-integration-part-3.html

Part 4 - Battle of the Orville TV Series
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/04/theme-conflict-integration-part-4.html

Part 5 - DEFIANT by Dave Bara (a novel worth studying)
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/04/theme-conflict-integration-part-5.html

Part 6 - A Character Under Influence
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/03/theme-conflict-integration-part-6.html

Part 7 - Romance Without Borders
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/04/theme-conflict-integration-part-7.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Conflict Integration Part 5 DEFIANT by Dave Bara

Theme-Conflict Integration

Part 5

DEFIANT by Dave Bara 

Previous Parts in Theme-Conflict Integration:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-conflict-integration-part-1.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/05/theme-conflict-integration-part-2.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/03/theme-conflict-integration-part-3.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/04/theme-conflict-integration-part-4.html

In Part 4, we looked closely at the TV Series The Orville, first season.

Now we will compare that brilliant TV writing to a novel, a completely different story-medium.

I like Dave Bara's novel series, The Lightship Chronicles, which we discussed previously:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/03/reviews-31-dave-bara-lightship.html

IMPULSE
STARBOUND
DEFIANT

I like and even love them because of the presence of various favorite ingredients of mine. So I'm biased in comparing these two stories THE ORVILLE and LIGHTSHIP CHRONICLES - one arising as homage to STAR TREK and the other exploring what happens to humanity after we spread to the stars.

After the Star Trek epoch of human history, when the civiliazation we have built collapses, then what do we do? And why do we do it?

Sound familiar?  Yes, my interest in that question dates back to way before I sold my first story -- which is the Sime~Gen story, Operation High Time, set in the epoch after the collapse and even after the rebuild of Earth's civilization when humanity is at the verge of exploring the Stars (again?).

So variations on that far-future story are irresistible to me.

Dave Bara has created a universe with a different History from what I have played with but retained the element of "Love Conquers All" that is my special interest.

In Bara's hands, the Romance theme becomes more a matter of "Love Conquers All After Love Causes All The Problems."

Problems caused by Love are usually the worst sort.

So while both THE ORVILLE and LIGHTSHIP CHRONICLES have strong elements of STAR TREK (the Galaxy spanning canvass), lots of explosions, fireballs in space, daring rescues, etc., they are each designed specifically for their delivery medium.

As I have noted in the Theme-Conflict Series, The Orville is tissue thin drama, hammering on Teen Themes played out in Adult lives - a miss-match that annoys a lot of folks who grew up on Star Trek.

The Lightship Chronicles are dense drama, hammering home one of my favorite master themes, "Don't judge a book by its cover."

Or put a more old fashioned way, "All is not as it seems."

The Orville is "on the nose" in theme and dialogue.

The Lightship Chronicles strives mightily to stay "off the nose" and only fails in action scenes.

The Orville is a stripped down, crystal clear (to adult viewers) depiction of a life of adventure working beside various Alien species -- comically recreating 21st Century social issues (such as prejudice against gelatinous beings as Chief of Engineering) -- a broad parody of current US culture for adults that seems plausible to the kids it is aimed at.

The Lightship Chronicles is a deep, complex depiction of interstellar trickery, betrayal, illusion, power-play strategies, firm alliances, trustworthy indivduals in a non-trustworthy bureaucracy. The substance is adult fare -- the writing craft inadvertently creates the Marty Sue effect referred to in my previous review of the Trilogy.

If I were 10 years old, reading this trilogy and watching The Orville (not acquainted with the previous decades works), I would be screaming for the depth and substance of the Lightship Chronicles done as the TV Series The Orville is done.

I wouldn't know as much about why I see it this way, or why it could never be this way.  So I would set out to make it this way.

The themes and conflicts that are possible on TV (even now that we have the episodic structure of series replacing the anthology structure Star Trek had to use) are expanding as the audiences become redefined.

The Orville is a major network, prime time, production aimed at the broadest and thus lowest common denominator -- what is called, in screen writing, High Concept. So it has to glue more eyeballs to the commercials than a novel.

A printed novel doesn't have to glue eyeballs to the page.  It has to induce individuals to part with a chunk of change, and that's it until the sequel is published.

These two different functions define the difference in content.

However, if you've been following my "changing world" posts,

...you know how enthusiastic I am about the expanding opportunities for video-production storytelling to reach small, but well defined audiences.  Streaming, and "originals" from Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, Apple YouTube, and more jumping into the fray every year, provide platforms for works to reach a narrow audience in a cost-effective way.

That audience may have narrow tastes but it is scattered worldwide.  Netflix is distributing (and redistributing) worldwide. I watch non-USA produced TV Series on Netflix and Amazon (with subtitles in English!).  Many are more substantive than US TV fiction.

Long series with deep, complex themes are beginning to appear.
However, most of the deepest and most complex video drama series are running one or two seasons, not twenty years as is necessary for the real depths to emerge.

There is hope to see some of these complicated novel series with abstract IDEAS (science fiction is the literature of ideas, and must become the video of ideas very soon!) to reach small audiences via streaming-original productions.  Pilots for such series are now appearing as 90 minute movies, not labeled pilots.

Violent action, solving problems by killing people and destroying things still sells better than problem solving by understanding and love.

Soon those small streaming video audiences will be nurtured by additional offerings, and the numbers watching will grow to commercial success magnitudes.

Small is not a property of "streaming" as a delivery channel, but rather of the type of theme and which of all the conflicts inherent in that theme are deemed most popular.

Right now, the prevailing theme that The Orville (and The Lightship Chronicles) are bucking is, "Success = murder, theft, dishonesty, trickery"

The only way for a Hero to win is to break his/her code of Honor, and breaking that code makes the Hero righteous.

Dave Bara uses the novel structure to pose the question, "When, Why, and How must we destroy to survive?"  Many thematic questions of right and wrong -- and of Identity -- are posed by the material Bara is working.

The scene structure craft deficiency Bara displays leads to his Characters coming off as children (not very bright ones, at that).  So he generates every action scene by the orders of the one Character authorized to give orders being challenged, discussed, or suggestions being made DURING the action.  In real life, this behavior leads to the questioners dying very quickly, and the rest learning when to speak and when not to.

Scene structure and information feed skills we have discussed in these Tuesday posts would cure that quickly, and re-form this marvelous material into something that could translate to a TV Series.  I think it could be made into something that would draw a wide audience.

The strength of Bara's presentation lies in the Main Character having a trait of "Intuition" -- he just knows things that others don't.

On The Orville, the First Officer (ex-wife of the Captain) likewise has Intuition but focused more on reading people (of various species).

Yes, the oddball trait of knowing things others don't, things the Character can't possibly know but does, is one of the main ingredients in stories I love the most.

Bara's Main Character is right, bucks authority, acts on his own recognizance, and wins.  He's my guy.

It's clear why his subordinates don't take his orders without question.  But placing the questions during the action destroys the effectiveness of this trait.

Do an in-depth contrast/compare between Bara's Peter Cochran Character and:

A) Jean Johnson's Ia
B) Gini Koch's Kitty Kat

Both rise from lower ranks to Command Rank, just as Bara's Peter does -- for similar reasons, a lightening fast intuitive response to danger, and to knowing what others believe you cannot possibly know.

All of these action-science-fiction Characters, Ed Mercer of The Orville, Peter Cochran, Ia, Kitty Kat, have spouses and/or ex's, lovers, affairs, or prospects. They are complicated people with complex Relationships driving them.

This Character portrait was DISALLOWED in Action-genre in general and in Science Fiction in particular for many decades.

We take it for granted today -- but it is new, powerful, and the signature of a maturing audience that such Characters sell action stories.

There is hope for deep, broad, far-ranging thematic compositions to make it to the Big Screen theatrical release, or 20 year TV Series (TVs aren't so "small screen"ish anymore.

Check out the TV Series on Netflix, "Transporter" a 2012 spinoff made from a Movie Trilogy.  Big screen to small screen evolution.

It is a pure action premise (I could wish this guy could teleport; that would have made it more interesting to me).

And it follows the rules we've been talking about:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transporter:_The_Series

-------quote------
Transporter: The Series (French: Le Transporteur : la série) is an English-language French-Canadian action television series, spin off from the Transporter film series created by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen. It was co-produced by the French Atlantique Productions and the Canadian boutique entertainment company QVF, Inc., and broadcast by M6, RTL Television, The Movie Network, and Movie Central. Originally, HBO and Cinemax were involved,[1] but they dropped out in 2013.[2]

The series follows the events and concept of the film trilogy, continuing the adventures of Frank Martin, a professional freelance courier driver for hire who will deliver anything, anywhere for the right price, and lives by three "unbreakable" rules, which he frequently breaks. Chris Vance takes over the role of Frank from Jason Statham and was joined in season 1 by Andrea Osvárt as his office manager Carla Valeri, Charly Hübner as mechanic Dieter Hausmann and François Berléand, the only returning actor from the film series, reprising his role as Inspector Tarconi.[3] The second season added Violante Placido as Caterina "Cat" Boldieu, his new booking agent. Unlike Carla, who did not make it to the second season, Cat usually joins Frank on his adventures.[4]

Twelve episodes were ordered in 2012 for the first season with an overall budget of US$40 million or €30 million.[1] The show premiered that year on 11 October in Germany on RTL, and on 6 December in France on M6. The Canadian premiere was on 4 January 2013 on HBO Canada and Super Écran 1 (with the first episode available online from 18 December 2012).[5] The series started broadcasting in India on 25 January 2013 on Sony PIX, and premiered in the United States on TNT on 18 October 2014. Twelve more episodes were ordered for season 2, which began production in Morocco in February 2014.[6] Season 2 premiered in Canada on 5 October 2014 on The Movie Network and Movie Central,[7] and in the United States on TNT on 29 November 2014.[8]

On November 26, 2015, it was announced that the series was cancelled and would not be renewed for a third season.[9]

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

Read that whole article -- it is textbook for the future of Series Development.  Various countries, various production companies, various funding sources -- 3 movies and 2 seasons of TV episodes.

The series premise didn't even have teleportation and they couldn't sell it as a Gunsmoke, 20 year project.

The theme bundles contained within "Might Makes Right" are waning in popularity.  Questioning that theme, posing different problem solving strategies (e.g. "Love Conquers All") now has a chance of reaching a receptive audience -- an audience to be nurtured.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Conflict Integration Part 3 Battle of the Generations

Theme-Conflict Integration

Part 3

Battle of the Generations

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts in this series:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-conflict-integration-part-1.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/05/theme-conflict-integration-part-2.html

In addition we talked about the depiction of complex battle scenes in a galactic civilization consisting of various Aliens, one species of which was messing around with their own genetics, then applying what they knew to other species.  That is Chuck Gannon's work and it is discussed here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/06/depiction-part-11-depicting-complex.html --

Chuck Gannon's space battles are emblematic of domestic disputes.

My Tuesday blog entries are about writing Science Fiction and Fantasy (Paranormal etc) ROMANCE.  We focus on relationship driven plots where the core conflict occurs because of a Romantic entanglement.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/index-to-targeting-readership-series-by.html

We have mulled over what exactly constitutes "romance" -- what do we mean by that word?

I use the definition that "romance" is a higher state of conscious awareness of another person - a Soul hidden inside a body - and because that perception is not available to all humans at all times, it always seems the one "in love" is "crazy" because they are operating on information not available to others.  Astrologically, this is a state of consciousness induced by transits (or natal positions) of Neptune.

That perceptual mis-match is the core of what drives every science fiction story I love.  It is the core of HARRY POTTER - he can do things others can't, so he learns and acts on things others don't credit.

These kinds of stories are the essence of Romance - the one-eyed in the land of the blind.  Perception.

It is a sort of "cognitive dissonance" which is part intellectual (Mercury) and part spiritual (Neptune) often driven by extreme situations (Pluto) such as war, massive loss to flood, famine, misfortune.

The main survival trait of humanity as a species is LOVE, which is one component of Romance but not always the dominant one.  Sometimes Romance leads you astray.  Sometimes it leads to a path you would avoid at all costs, but which your soul desperately needs.

Romance, the "vision" of the impossible, the "what if.." and "if only .." and "if this goes on ..." of science fiction, is the main focus of the human adult in formation, the TEEN.

That is why science fiction first gained popularity among teens -- the conceptual essence of a science fiction story is the impossible made real.

That vision of the impossible made real is the essence of human progress in civilization on this planet -- and our ability to build civilizations and survive their collapse.

It will drive us to colonize space, and other planets, and survive the collapse and ruin of this planet (or the explosion of our star).

We find this vision of the impossible made real in teens.

It bursts into consciousness with sexual maturity, and ripens by age 30 (first Saturn Return), then the 40-somethings become dictators of what is real and true, while new teens burst out of those confines of stodgy, wrong-headed thought.

This is a cycle within generations, and also among generations -- it runs about 4 generations, 80 years, and has been known by many names over thousands of years and many civilizations (most unrecorded pre-history civilizations or even hunter-gatherer societies),.

Writers of science fiction romance, looking to target an audience, should take the age-cycled characteristics of fiction appetite into account.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/index-to-targeting-readership-series-by.html

And here is a key post explaining how to create a family argument among generations, as well as how to target specific age-groups with fiction themes that tickle their sensibilities.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html

Here is the Index to posts about Astrology.

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

Now, Pluto is the drama behind the Theme-Conflict Integration -- the show-don't-tell.  You can SHOW Pluto driven events - they are larger than life, soap opera sequences of "the worst thing that could happen to this character."

People deride soap opera simply because it's unbelievable that so many huge disasters could happen to this small group of people.  But the truth is, families are composed of people with Astrological Natal Chart features that are in relation to each other - so when Pluto transits one person's sensitive point, it simulataneously hits the others in the family.

But each age group in a family react to the stimulus of Pluto differently because of experience.  To a Teen, it is a life-ending disaster, to a parent it is a frustrating setback, but to the grandparent it is your just comeuppance.

To the Teen, an event (such as the family has to move for employment) is the first time ripping events have destroyed expectations.  The teen is a virgin to high-impact Pluto transits.

The princess and the pea story illustrates this.

Likewise, to the Teen a major Neptune transit opens a whole new perception of reality, and it is the end of the world when the elders in the family joke fatuously about "puppy love" and older siblings tease.

Older Humans (not maybe your aliens?) regard the way Teens experience reality as a false view of reality.

That happens because, over decades, humans learn how wrong they were (via divorce, being fired from a dream job, flunking out of favorite major) when they assessed life through the distorting lens of Neptune.

Some Souls can translate Neptune data into useful information.  Most can't.

Two ways you find out which type of Soul you have is to
a) act on what you think Neptune is telling you -- and see what happens years later.
b) read lots and lots of fiction, especially science fiction and/or Romance.

Marriages leading to divorce are like that.  Raising a kid you thought would be one thing who turns out to think he is another thing, likewise contains a Neptune (illusion, idealization) message.  Soap opera stories are good cautionary tales.

Fiction is the main source for Teens, but today that does not necessarily mean novels, stories, movies, games, and other "published" professional fiction.

Today's teens are imbibing "fiction" via "social networking.

People depict their real life in a fictional way on social media, creating an illusion.  The most skilled social media teens can tell the truth and make it seem better or worse than reality.

The less skilled copy them, but don't cast the illusion well, or it doesn't come out as planned.

Teens are teens.  With hormones roaring to life, and no experience to guide actions, they have only the proto-type of an ability to understand what they are seeing via the lens of Neptune or Pluto.

However, all humans (even teens) are individuals, and react to what they perceive in idiosyncratic ways.  Many are born with the Soul level skills to perceive through the lens of Neptune, Pluto (even Uranus), with piercing accuracy their parents do not have.

Humanity as a species is designed with this generational cycle.

See the part near the end of this post:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html

where I list where Pluto is during which decades.

Where Pluto is in the natal chart is fixed to a sign by generation, but for each individual is in a different House with different aspects to the faster, inner Planets.
The pattern is unique to each individual, but powerfully similar to members born in a particular span of years.

A third variable is age.

The human species has certain age-specific body functions, and thus very specific epochs in life - lessons on the table before you because of your age.

The first ten years are the dawning of consciousness.  According to one model, the Soul "descends" into the body in stages, a year at a time and by 12 or 13 is ready to begin learning life's lessons.

How do your Aliens mature?  Gradually?  Suddenly?

Humans stumble into sexual maturity with legendary ineptitude, in growth spurts.

But one thing the Teen years always bring is the business of enlarging and cementing Relationships.

The child's world is the parents, siblings, cousins maybe, and the home environment.  The Teen's world is the surrounding village, maybe people from other villages.  The adult's world include's the King's Castle, the tax collectors, and the conscripting soldiers.

Today, the conscripting soldiers have invaded the nursery.

That is the changing world in which the current crop of teens (born in 2005) are adapting.

We have brain studies showing how experience changes the way our genes "express" and how our brains develop different synapse patterns according to different stimuli,

That is why kids could program VCRs that mystified adults.

That is why the current crop of teens really need phones and Facebook.

The teen years mold the brain and body, and create the network of support groups (and the ability to join and/or leave a support group or clique).

The business of the teen years, the vital and profitable activity of teens, is reaching out to the "village" and working with, learning to know and appreciate, people of different ages, interests, skills, and talents.

The teens are called the formative years, and referred to later as "I grew up here among them" -- the social connections are important not for who is connected to whom, but for the ability to form connections.

Humans need the ability to form connections (not just friendships or romance but all sorts of connections) and to break or out-grow those connections.

The teens are the time when the brain learns connecting, but to learn that, there has to be practice, real-world application.

It used to be that Parents knew every other family in the village and chose who their children could associate with.

An adult raised that way would not be successful in today's world on Earth.

I suspect the interstellar consortium of former Earth colonies would likewise not favor adults whose teens were spent knowing only a very few other humans.

Today's teens need to develop synapses of no use (or even perhaps toxic) to their Parent's generation.

That need arises from the world the current Teen's grandparents built.

These Teens' business is to develop a perception level, an intuition, that will allow them to select out the FEW THOUSAND other humans who are worthy and useful associates.

Watch the structure of LinkedIn grow.

Watch the toxic robot-repeated messages flood outwards on whatever topic Big Bucks are funding (via Press Releases etc).

Teens will be hurt - many will die, becoming examples to their peers of what not to do.  Teens will sort out, churning some to prominence and others to obscurity.  Teens will learn that the prominent are not the powerful, not the decision makers whose judgement prevails and creates a new world.

Teens always set out in life to change the world they were born into.  That is their business in their teens.

In their twenties, their business becomes finding "The One" partner for life, and then having kids, supporting kids, and so on -- should you survive all that, then comes grandchildren.

But as soon as the human leaves the Teen years behind, the disapproval of whatever the new crop of Teens are doing sets in.

Some twenty-somethings cling to the latest Teen jargon, others discard it like dirt.

The Thirty-somethings who have Teen children try to beat "teen-ness" out of their children - deny them cell phones or the toxic social networks, keep their Teens from making the same mistakes they did.

That's what Parents do -- prevent children from making mistakes.

But what if the children are correct and the parents wrong?

That "what-if" is the essence of Science Fiction -- the dream (Neptune) that "I know better than those who have power over me."  It's Harry Potter.

The only way today's crop of Teens being driven to suicide by cyber-bullying (or doing the cyber-bullying or hacking and stealing, or sabotaging other kids) will learn to handle the social networking world, develop brain synapses their parents do not have and can not understand, and be correct in their judgement calls, is to wander the Web and get into trouble.

Getting into trouble and being rescued is what children do.

Getting into trouble and rescuing yourself is what adults do.

How do you get to be an adult if you've never been a child?

Today's readership is freaked out by children getting "wet" on Facebook because the social networking tools appeared after these parents were teens.  These parents do not know how to rescue kids from cyberbullies.

The only remedy they know is to cut off acccess to the Web.  But "the Web" is the village these Teens must reach out to, embrace, and master.

This speed of change in society has never happened to humans before.

"Unprecedented, Captain" is Spock's response to the unknown.

Most humans do not welcome encounters with the unknown.  Fear paralyzes then causes aggressive strikes against what might be a threat -- long before real analysis can be completed.

In today's world of social networking, analysis will lag change by years - enough years to bring up a new crop of Teens.

The fact of social change is not a problem to humans (but might be to Aliens, thus Star Trek's Prime Directive).  The problem for humans now comes from (as Toffler indicated) the accelerating speed of change.

Parents can't rescue and train children because the parents have no experience of what the children are adapting to.

Adaptation has always been humanity's main survival trait.

Our Teens can adapt to this new and changing world -- forty-somethings are already losing the flexibility of youth.

So, the Battle of the Generations is built into our DNA.

Pliability, and the ability to create new brain configurations to deal with new kinds of threats, is the main characteristic of the human Teen.

Stability, strength, Will Power is the main characteristic of forty-somethings.

These two characteristics might make Humanity (Earthlings) a fearsome, creeping horror threat to the Aliens out there in the Galaxy who do not have such short generations (anymore).

Or, perhaps your Aliens may retain that Teen ability to form new Relationships well into age?

The perpetual Teens would have an inexorable thirst for novelty (as do our Teens).

Now, suppose humanity is now about to meet up with Aliens from out in the Galaxy. Suppose we opt to prevent all our Teens from experiencing raw social networking because of cyberbullying and suicide triggers.  We might end up without any thirty-somethings who are capable of forming Relationships with those Aliens, taking as good a beating as the Aliens can dish out, and come back swinging.

Our thirty-somethings who didn't grow up in the brutal world of social networking wouldn't be able to keep interstellar war from destroying Earth.

Or maybe, there would be no Alien Romance to create an epoch of peace and plenty on Earth?

Humanity's survival might depend on our willingness and ability to inflict brutality beyond measure upon our own.

The greatest brutality might be the natural, inevitable, built-in human tendency to "protect" our children from adventuring into a wider social world than they have been trained to navigate?

Maybe we need to train our 5 year olds to navigate hostile social territory -- and thereby create friendly territory (cliques?).

High school and college are the realm of cliques.  Should we expunge clique-formation?

If Aliens infiltrate Earth societies, would be force change on these social tendencies to form safe-associations (cliques) that turn on the loner, and bully them to death?

Or would the Aliens swoop in and rescue the targets of our bully-cliques?  Take them far away and raise them through their Teens with magic skills?

The business, purpose of existence, of the human Teen years is the forming of wider social circles (search for a mate) and forming solid Relationships with absolute strangers from alien backgrounds.

Would you let your bullied Teen be adopted by Aliens and taken away for 15 years?

Do you think that kid would ever come "home" voluntarily?

If the Teen years pass in isolation from other Teens, what sort of Adult results?

Human parents have always acculturated their Teens to the world the parents grew up in.  The difference today is that this natural process denudes the new adult of the skills needed to "make a living" and find a mate, make a home, raise children.

THEME: humans need other humans, Relationships and love to survive as humans.

CONFLICT: parents must keep their children from associating with other humans with the power to harm.

The generations have always been at odds, but never quite like this, at the survival level.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

What Futurologists Do Part 2 - Futuristic Conflict In Romance

What Futurologists Do

Part 2

Futuristic Conflict In Romance

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

In What Futurologists Do Part 1, 

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/10/what-futurologists-do-part-1.html

I presented the meme-quote from Carl Sagan's 1996 book The Demon-Haunted World.

He encapsulated a vision we must ponder because it is so close to the world we are currently living in and plunging beyond.

Sagan was known for his non-fiction, and certainly not for writing Romance novels.  But Science Fiction Romance -- romance between human and alien, or just plain Relationship between human and non-human -- is the main topic on this blog.  To blend the Science Fiction genre with the Romance genre, we have to know a little science, yes, but also a lot more about how scientists think.

Not, mind you, a lot more about WHAT scientists think, but rather about HOW the thinking is done.  Where do the conclusions we read in popular science articles come from?

One of the first things to consider, to habitually ask yourself, is, "What do they know that I don't know?"

And second most important habit for a writer tackling alien dialogue creation is, "What do I know that they don't know?"

What the writer knows that the aliens don't know is precisely what the reader knows that the Alien Characters don't know.

The results of focusing on these questions can be seen very clearly in the film, STARMAN.  The 1984 version starring Jeff Bridges is the one I'm talking about here.

With the B&W very early THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL film, you have the beginnings of Science Fiction Romance in the video industry.

The captivating, moving and eternally memorable aspect of these Alien Romance stories is the "learning curve" -- the encounter with something utterly alien yet somehow familiar.

Futurologists do this kind of thinking along the time-line rather than between planets.

But the question the writer is asking inside their own mind is the same whether it is catapulting a self-image into some future world or bringing an "alien" (from the future such as The Terminator, from the past such as Iceman, or from another planet such as Starman, osr both such as DOCTOR WHO) into the reader/viewer's present reality is always the same.

"What do I know that this (alien/time-traveler) does not know?"

This key question has an answer that lies in the reader/viewer's blind spot -- the psychological black hole that forms the center of consciousness.

A newborn baby comes into this world knowing nothing, learning a million things a second.  The votex at the center of our being from which our sense of "reality" comes, our sense of "right and wrong" and everything we judge acceptable or which must be exterminated is rooted in that big blind-spot at the center of consciousness.

Exploring that big, dark, churning mass of experience is often the main occupation of adulthood, especially for artists of all sorts.

But audiences are composed mostly of people who don't want to explore how they know what they know -- and in many cases, want to avoid knowing what they know that convinces them of the validity of their current opinions.

Challenging current opinions, boring into the black hole at the center of consciousness is the function of fiction in general, but especially of science fiction.

Fiction is an artistic, selective representation of reality.  Science is the organization of our tested knowledge about reality.

There is a contradiction between those two mental processes -- organizing facts and testing them vs. depicting the truth we associate with what we know.

Science vs. Art -- many assume they are mutually exclusive and one must necessarily be superior to the other.

Science Fiction is about the seamless blend, the harmonious unity of these two modes of thinking so that the reader is treated to a vision of how the world works when science and art blend perfectly.

Nowhere in the Literature of science fiction is this blend better illustrated than in the First Contact story.

That is the category that Starman belongs to.

There are many classic stories in this First Contact category -- one of my favorites is In Value Decieved by H. B. Fyfe, November 1950 Astounding.
http://www.unz.org/Pub/AnalogSF-1950nov-00038

It has the flavor of a Gordon R. Dickson story -- or one such as Lulungomeena
https://youtu.be/P5KSmPHqKcQ  -- YouTube audio of a Galaxy Magazine story done for Radio - X-Minus One.

Notice I'm citing items that have lived in memory of thousands of people for many decades.  Do you want to write a Classic science fiction romance?  Study the classics of the field that is just barely old enough to have classics!

These are all-time classics because they explore with a delicate probe and half-smile the sensitive depths of that black-hole at the center of the audience's mind, the one place we are most loath to explore.

Put it "out there" as "alien" and certain people will look at it willingly, and perhaps like and remember it because it allows them to access the depths of their own minds without shuddering.

What you know that the Alien does not know, and how the Alien reacts to learning what you know, teaches you about what what you know that you didn't know you knew and didn't want to know you knew!

Literature Professors often refer to the sensations this causes as Cognitive Dissonance.

In fiction, in Art, it can be induced in mild forms and be examined in a pleasurable context.

But in everyday reality, as Carl Sagan has indicated ...

-----------quote---------
...when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority;
-------------end quote-------

... factions are chipped off the social whole, the social fabric frays, or whatever metaphore makes sense to you -- when communication FAILS, and individuals have "lost the ability to set their own agendas" then emotion erupts.

It is incomprehensible how a member of society, how a citizen of the country you consider yourself a citizen of -- how the OTHERS you have always thought were "like me" can possibly think what they (seem to) think!

Such thoughts, and such thinking is so evil, so anti-life, so apallingly counter-survival that it is necessary to eradicate the thinker of such thoughts, to expunge the pollution from the social fabric.

The rejection of the "Other" is visceral, and the more virulent because at some point that person or people like them were considered "us."

It is the seminal Horror trope -- that which is killing you is inside you, eating your guts.  Yes, like cancer.

Sagan is talking about (what was to him) the future in which society is fractured by an inability to communicate about the highest levels in technology (Artificial Intelligence was purely fictional concept back then!), and the most abstract issues of social cohesiveness (such as race relations, gender pay-equality, and the proper role of government in civilization).

Each faction "knows" something with absolute certainty that the other factions don't know or could never believe (or don't want to believe).

This "knowledge" resides in that black hole at the center of being which gains its content in the first, pre-verbal years of life.

As Sagan notes, something drastic has changed and it is reflected in the media now relying on brief sound-bytes to "inform" the general public.

It is clear there is a "they" who knows things the "we" don't know.

Transmission of that knowledge from they to we -- or from we to they -- is just not happening.

All the factions seem to be talking different languages, chattering on about different topics, and when no listening is happening, the conclusion is reached that the "Other" must be irradicated.  At all costs.

This is the situation readers now live in -- the futurologist writer has to leap over this maelstrom and depict the situation that will prevail 30 or 50 years from now, perhaps a thousand or two years from now.

Science Fiction does not have to be futuristic.  It has to blend Science (the study and organization of our knowledge of physical reality) with Fiction (the study and organization of our knowledge of emotiional reality).

The classics of science fiction romance will be about "What do I know that this one does not know?"
And with the Romance genre angle completely blended in, the classics of our genre will be about, "How Do I Transmit What I Know?"

You can transmit what you know without knowing you know it -- all parents do that with their infants -- but you can't recognize successful transmission unless you actually know what you know.  Parents are always shocked when their three year old behaves the exact way the parents have behaved.

Children learn at a stupendous rate, but adults depend on what they have learned.

What do you know that your readers do not know? 

Your readers are adults -- so they learn more slowly.  Can you transmit your knowledge of human emotional reality to your readers by using agreed upon scientific facts?

Carl Sagan has pinpointed the crux of the conflict that drives all Romance, particularly science fiction romance in this modern era.

-----quote----
The plain lesson is that study and learning - not just of science, but of anything - are avoidable, even undesirable.
-----end quote--------

There is such a thing as "The Battle of the Sexes" -- and the battle is over "I know better than you!"

Put another way, the Battle is over whether what men "know" is true, or not.

Today, this is played out on the public stage by Conservative vs. Liberal -- "What I know is true is really true but what you blieve is true is actually false."

That is the core conflict of all Battle of the Sexes Romance novels - what I know is true but what you know is actually false.

As Sagan wrote, we don't want to study or learn what OTHERS think is true because that might call into question what we know.

Do we even know what we know?  And how do we know it?

In his non-fiction work, FUTURE SHOCK, Alvin Toffler explained as of the 1970's how the acceleration of acceleration of "change" in society was making change run so fast that the basic human organism can NOT adjust fast enough.

Humans are adaptable and adjustable as infants -- our genetics and epigenetics discoveries are showing how individualistic and adaptable humans are, and later how very slow to adapt in elder years.

Even in the 1970's, what older people knew (from the content of their Black Holes) had already become false or irrelevant in that decade.  Look how many who were adults in the 1970's did not adapt to the computer revolution of the 1980's.

What you KNOW is the enemy of your survival in a fast evolving world.

Even younger people are subject to this as their "black hole" was filled by yet older people.

There is a trend among Millennials to have their children later in life -- those children are being filled with OLDER truths.  The rate of change of this society may slow down because of that.

This human limit is the essential source of all Romantic Conflict.

Can "Love" conquer this aversion to study and learning?

That is an important question to explore in fiction, using all the social science and brain studies you can find because  studying and learning your spouse is the key to the Happily Ever After.

You can not agree to disagree -- therein lies misery ever after as the gulf of knowlege unshared grows ever wider with our accelerating rate of change.

Men must learn to look at the world through their woman's knowledge of truth, while women must understand the world through their man's understanding of facts.

Truth and facts should coincide, but due to black-hole-programing, they don't always quite make it.

The truth/fact dichotomy is the "All" that love must "Conquer."

Now the question is: "Does Conquering Actually Work?"

Does winning a war cause war to end?  If so, how come we still have wars?

With all our change, have we "progressed" or have we "regressed?"

Ponder the Battle of the Sexes.  Does the winner have a survival advantage?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Depiction Part 3: Internal Conflict by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction Part 3
Internal Conflict
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

That saying is a nutshell statement of what we're discussing in this DEPICTION Series.  Listen to the arguments in the world around you, especially politics, to see if you can determine whether they are arguing about WHO is right, or about WHAT is right.  Which argument makes a better Romance Novel?

Part 1 of this series:

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

Part 2: Conflict and Resolution
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-2-conflict-and-resolution.html

Many romance writers resort to "internal dialogue" (usually done in italics, first person instead of quotes, but it's still dialogue) to try to depict what is going on inside of a character.

This is not an incorrect approach and it is very popular with Romance Readers.

However, the repeated use of a single tool to illustrate a single point soon begins to impart a monotonous undertone to the Author's Voice.

By varying the tools used, the writer can create the illusion of a real character.

The 4 main tools a writer has were mentioned in Part 2 of this series, Dialogue, Description, Narrative, and Exposition, are the tools that can be varied to depict internal conflict, and thus give your character depth and his/her point of view a sense of reality.

Prior posts linked in Part 2 lead into the detailed discussion of these 4 basic tools, which most new writers have a fair grasp on.  The one most often abused is Exposition, leading to the dreaded Expository Lump. 

An "expository lump" is a long passage, a whole paragraph or sometimes several pages in a row, of the author telling about the environment of the story, the character's situation, ancestry, attitudes and preferences. 

A good writer will grab the other 3 tools in quick succession, most often within a single sentence, to convey this information to the reader.

Beta Readers will complain the story is "slow" or "boring" or "incomprehensible" -- Amazon comments will bitterly point out that it wasn't worth what they paid, even if it was free.  And all of them are actually reacting not to the information being conveyed in the expository lump, not to the exposition itself, but to the LUMP. 

The issue that readers who aren't writers react to without knowing its source is the LUMP not the exposition.

One way to break up a LUMP is to use the other three tools - Dialogue, Description, and Narrative.

The best way to approach a long, intricate and abstract "lump" of information to be dumped on a reader is with Narrative.  TELL THE STORY.  That's what narrative is -- the narrative are the words that convey the story. 

Narrative says, he went here, met her, they went there, found a dead body, called the police, -- narrative fleshes out the Plot Events into scenes.

Here is a post about scene structure with link to previous part:

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

And here is part 8 on Dialogue with links to previous posts:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/08/dialogue-part-8-futuristic-and-alien.html

So one way to break up that deadly-dull introductory expository lump which we discussed in Depiction Part 2 is to vary the tool you are using.

Take all that information that the reader must know before the actual story starts and cast it as scenes.

But the rule still applies that page 1 must depict the conflict, so you can't just make up more scenes to go before the story starts.  You have to find a way to integrate that opening scene stuck on page 25 into your newly made up scene with all the expository information in it.

This process reformulates your outline, changes the plot, may change the antagonist's identity, and well, change everything.  But while you do this process, you will suddenly find yourself feeling like a working professional writer -- you will know this will sell because it fits the paradigm of well known books that have been published. 

So you take your laboriously created expository lump, and cast that information in scenes.

In that new scene, there have to be characters, and the characters have to be in conflict -- not necessarily with each other.

Everything might seem calm on the surface, while the conflict the reader sees brewing seethes beneath the apparently offhand dialogue.

Ah, yes, you have written pages of block paragraphs of exposition, and now you must cut that information, cast it into scenes, and now you pick up the dialogue tool you worked so hard to master.

You can start your scene with a line of dialogue, without even the tag of "he said" -- just a statement or question can do it. 

"Where did you get that old spaceship!"

Wouldn't that line open a grand romantic battle-of-the-sexes novel complete with aliens aforethought?

With a line of dialogue like that, you are depicting the internal conflict of the person being addressed -- not the person speaking! 

You have used SHOW DON'T TELL to convey information about a character who hasn't even appeared yet.

Now pick up another of the 4 tools, Narrative.

He kicked at the metal side of the cylinder sitting in his garage, but his eyes were on his erstwhile wife of three days.  Before his boot made contact with the metal, she grinned in anticipation.  Then his foot went right through the corroded metal plate and sparks flew.

That's NARRATIVE.  It's what happened.  But it contains single words of description (metal, cyclinder, garage, corroded, sparks) -- "erstwhile" is depiction which indicates there's some irregularity involved here so the reader is invited to "fill in the blanks."

She laughed at him.  "I found it when we moved in.  It was under that heap of bags of Stardust."

"She laughed at him" is narrative, but since it's a slightly inappropriate response to his "accusation" implied by using an ! instead of a ? in his question -- it shows rather than tells there's buried conflict.  I might have written, "She recoiled from his accusation" but that would have weakened her character -- so instead she uses inappropriate aggression.  But the DIALOGUE she chooses is DEFENSIVE, so we know she feels attacked by his !-style question. 

Now pick up another tool, Description.

The detached garage sat on the surface of the asteroid they had won in a card game, right over the pressurized apartment.  The garage could be evacuated, but if they did that to bring their ship in, they'd lose all the drug money that Stardust represented.

EXPOSITION: It had been her idea to avoid evacuating the garage to bring their ship inside.  (SEE? ONE LINE, NO LUMP.)

Wrenching his foot free of the hole, he turned hands on hips.  "Maybe I will actually marry you after all."

"Over my dead body!" 

NOTE: that is a line of narrative followed in the same paragraph by a line of dialogue.

Look that over again.  Start with a line of Dialogue, then Narrative, Dialogue, Description, Exposition, Narrative, Dialogue, Dialogue. 

EXERCISE: Go find a copy of your favorite novel and go through it with highlighters coloring each word to tag it as dialogue, description, narrative or exposition -- note the rhythmic alternation and then write a piece of your own with that SAME RHYTHM of tools. 

Now go back over what I just wrote here and look at the characterization.

Find the external conflict -- there they are on an asteroid they won (note the ABSENCE of an explanation of what card game, how they partnered, why they ended up co-owning the asteroid, whether they own equal shares, or why they were both playing that game), and they HAVE FOUND a pile of drugs of some colossal value if sold to a trafficker (note the absence of narrative of poking around their new place and her discovering but not mentioning the space ship, of any reason why she didn't mention it -- NOTE WHAT IS LEFT OUT).

Find the internal conflict -- they are partnered but not exactly married. Neither really knows if this is Love or what.  They've got worries (lots of money involved; someone probably wants that Stardust; can they trust each other?)  They are hip-deep in a Situation and they disagree what the Situation actually is, except that it's changing by the moment. 

He accuses, she counter-attacks -- that's the surface or external conflict.  It shows without telling what the shadowy-lurking-shape of the internal conflicts must be like.

Now, the actual story starts when SOMETHING comes after that drug-dump of Stardust, and all this about the garage might have been cast as an expository lump.

Three days after Marla and Tip got to the asteroid, Tip discovered that Marla had been hiding a space ship in the garage.  He was mad at her for that but she just mocked him and flounced off.  So he chased her down and proposed marriage again, as a solution to the legal problem of joint-ownership of all that wealth.  Two days later, while they were eating dinner (separately), something hit the asteroid.

BORING.

Where's the story?  Where are the characters?  Where's the action? 

Or you could make it worse with a long technical description of the size of the asteroid, the make and model of the artificial gravity machinery, the orbit, and speculation about all the things that could happen but didn't.

You, as writer, know all that -- all of it, every single bit.  But the reader, as a reader, doesn't need to know, and more than that doesn't want to know.

Your job as writer is to get the reader wanting to know long, long before you "reveal" without TELLING.

Let the reader figure it out, then confirm their suspicions. 

That's a major key to how a reader "gets into" a book and "identifies" with a character.

In Part 2 of this series on Depicting, we used a political example, so let's use another one from politics.

You see on the TV News how commentators on one network point the finger at commentators on rival networks, trying to make a story out of one calling the other names.  Yes, it's pathetic, and one big reason nobody watches TV news anymore.

But there's a lot to be learned from watching stuff like that.

Every once in a while, when they know the listening audience is very small (like Friday night for example), they will reveal by offhand reference just how these pieces are generated and why some Events get covered and others don't.

1) The Narrative
2) Optics
3) Resonance

"The Narrative" -- the news is not what's new, but the next development in a story-line that doesn't exist in reality.  This is a story that is being invented much like a Parable or a story-with-a-moral -- a story that is designed to get viewers to draw certain specific conclusions and thus act on those conclusions as if they were fact based.

"The Optics" -- referring to an entire PR discipline dedicated to figuring out what conclusions the majority of a certain demographic will draw from certain images.

"Resonance" -- referring to retweeting. Will this story go viral.  Will you hear this installment of the story and hasten to tell your friends on Facebook or Pinterest?  Will they in turn tell all their friends?  Does anybody care?  Do they "relate to" this story?

How do people come to "relate to" a story?

The same way they come to "relate to" the characters in a novel.

Yes, fiction and news are on convergent paths. 

In fiction, Literature Professors study how readers "identify with" an "objective correlative" -- and in film, Blake Snyder formulated a category of deeds that CAUSES viewers to "identify with" a protagonist.

Drawing a reader/viewer into a story is a science these days.

You get drawn into a story when you see something in a character in the story that you either see in yourself or want to see in yourself -- something you aspire to be (Superhero) or actually are (angst-ridden).

You get drawn into a story when you identify with the protagonist (or antagonist).

That's why there is so much  tear-jerker coverage of news stories about tragedies -- repeated interviews with the survivors or victims.

It's the people that make it REAL. 

In fiction, it's the characters that make it realistic.

The same principle is used in politics to collect loyal followings of Democrats and Republicans (in the USA; elsewhere different parties, same principle).

You hear stories on the news about this politician and that, about Congress and the TITLE of a bill, and the Senate and which senators are for or against the Congress Bill with that TITLE.

Now we all know the title of a bill rarely has anything at all to do with the content, and amendments can reverse the entire thing, distort it, or maybe add a new topic entirely.  To be AGAINST a Bill is not necessarily to be against achieving what the Title says.  It may be merely to be against some other topic that got tacked on by amendment.  It's horse-trading.

However, the way we barely scan the surface of the news these days, all we know is the TITLE and whether it's supported by Republicans or Democrats.

Those OPTICS are managed by PR experts to lead people to "identify" with Republicans or Democrats, and it's a war-for-eyeballs.  They want you to SEE (show don't tell) how all Republicans are against Women's Rights, or all Democrats don't value Life.

PR experts create these "narratives" with words, optics, and topics personified in characters.  They draw people into identifying with one or the other label.

This is exactly what a writer does to draw a reader into the story.

Once a viewer has Identified with a Republican, that short-cut thinking described in Part 2 cuts in, and in that viewer's mind "All Republicans Think Like Me" becomes an unassailable axiom of existence.  Any attack on any Republican is taken personally -- which is why Politics is an explosive subject.

Prejudice, you recall from Part 2, is all about that short-cut thinking that lets us fill in the blanks of a depiction -- so we see a few sparse lines, and our minds insist the whole, full-color image is in 3-D right there.  We see a person with dark skin and insist we're looking at a "bad person."  That irrational conviction is absolute because it is based on what we know about ourselves, not on what we know about the person before us.

It works the same way for Democrats -- just find one Democrat who seems like "my kind of people" and suddenly all Democrats firmly believe what you, yourself, believe.

The truth is, some do, some don't, and no two are alike. 

But our brains can't handle that much data, so we use our short-cut thinking and just know that all those nasty accusations against the Party we identify with are untrue because those accusations are untrue of us.

You know who you are; you know what you believe; you know what you are for or against, and you Identify with this or that person or sub-group of a Party, and impute the certainties you cherish to all members of the larger Party.

Knowing that mechanism is operating in most voters, the political PR machine uses it to get you to "Identify" with a Candidate.  They believe that if they can hook you, they have you. 

You know if you can hook a reader on Page 1, you have them at least until the Middle, and if the Middle doesn't sag, you have them to the End.  And you'll likely be able to sell them another book with your byline. 

You can learn to induce Identification in readers by studying the Political PR Machine creating a fictional character out of each and every politician running for office.

Students rack up tens of thousands of dollars in debt taking courses to become experts in PR (Public Relations - Google it, see how many schools there are and what it costs).  You can learn all you have to know about how it's done by watching political commercials and scanning the News.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
https://flipboard.com/profile/jacquelinelhmqg