Read What You Love, Part 2 by Karen S. Wiesner

Read What You Love, Part 2

by Karen S. Wiesner

In this three-part article, I talk about what conditions, if any, cultivate or discourage a love of the written word as well as about the importance of reading what you love, regardless of your age, the genre or content appropriateness, your gender, or what's considered your "level". In the last two segments, I'll also review two of my favorite Young Adult book series that any fan of the supernatural should love as I much as I do.

In the first part of this article, I talked about how, in the general sense, people should read what they're interested in. It doesn't matter if someone else dubs it above or below your proper reading level, too mature or immature, if it's in a genre that social convention says adults or kids shouldn't be reading, or if it's something most people think of as gender specific. A love of the written word transcends any boundaries. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Read what you love!

In this next part, I'll review a phenomenal Young Adult series I discovered as a 30-something year old adult and would have missed (and been the worse for it) if I cared anything about maturity, appropriateness, genre, and level classifications. Fablehaven is a Young Adult Fantasy series with five books in the first set with another five in the spinoff Dragonwatch.

In the very first installment that shares the same name as the series, the main characters of the series, young adults Kendra and Seth Sorenson, are spending the summer with grandparents they've barely met up to this point in their lives. Never could they have imagined that Stan and Ruth are the current caretakers of Fablehaven, a centuries' old hidden refuge for all sorts of mythical creatures they're protecting from extinction. This sanctuary survives as one of the last strongholds of magic in the real world. In the restricted woods around the property, ancient laws dictate order among a wide selection of supernatural creatures that run the gamut between good and evil and sometimes a little of both at once. The kids meet witches, fairies, satyrs, trolls, imps, mermaids, and--hoo-ya!--dragons. And that's not even close to all that crop up as the first saga is spun. Each volume introduces new additions to the creatures that inhabit this fascinating secret world along with compelling characters in various organizations on the outside pursuing the incredible wealth and power controlling the magical preserves and the arcane magic hidden in each that could be theirs.

Being the older of the two, Kendra (12-13) is more sensible and mature (if a bit too perfect), almost always working to do the altruistic thing and/or to right the wrongs--frequently those caused by her own brother. In contrast, Seth (11) is immature, reckless, impulsive, a bit greedy, and far too curious for his own good. In large part, the problems that take place in both of the connected series are due to Seth's consistent failure to think things through to the inevitable conclusion instead of the one he optimistically envisions. However, lest you think these are clichéd or what-you-see-on-the-surface-is-what-you-get characters, let me assure you, they're not. Seth is fun and fun-loving, and you can't help but love and root for him, even as you're rolling your eyes, going "Seth, Seth, have you learned nothing from the last time you tried something stupid like this?!" His boundless enthusiasm pulls you along despite yourself. Kendra is also a multifaceted character with strengths and weaknesses, though she begins and often is very typical of what you'd expect. She serves as a good role model to anyone else who's had their vision of what life and reality are turned completely upside down. The siblings discover their own sort of magic power within the course of the series that can help or hinder their efforts to keep the magical refuges unharmed and intact.

The grandparents Stan and Ruth running Fablehaven are well-drawn and complex, as you'd expect, as are those associated with the sanctuary--Lena, the housekeeper, Dale, the groundskeeper, and his brother Warren; and Hugo the golem; the mystical world at large; and secret organizations, each in their capacities of helping or harming. There are many other intriguing characters that readers will enjoy having join the cast. The parents of Kendra and Seth are nearly non-existent. In Book 1, I accepted that they were going on a 17-day cruise and so basically dropped off the kids and had no reason to really worry anything could go wrong. But their continued absence and/or lack of involvement through the other four books in the series were the only aspect I found a little bit unsettling and unrealistic.

Starting in the second book in the series, Rise of the Evening Star (an archaic society seeking to grab control of the magic preserves around the globe), five artifacts of immense power become the focus of this story and Books 3-5 (titled respectively The Grip of the Shadow Plague, Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary, and Keys to the Demon Prison) as those protecting the sanctuary and the other four like it all over the globe try to keep these talismans from falling into the hands of those who wish to subvert and unleash what could destroy the world--magic and human alike--as they know it.

Though Book 5 ends on an optimistic, if a little unresolved (purposely, I believe) note, it's not the end. Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary introduced Wyrmroost, a hidden dragon sanctuary, that becomes the focus of the spinoff series, Dragonwatch. In the first book of the same name as the series, four months have passed since the events of Keys of the Demon Prison. Kendra and Seth are a little older, a little wiser, and both are equipped with powers that will prove vital to fighting an all-new threat. Their cousins Knox and Tess are also visiting Fablehaven for the summer, which is bound to cause endless issues and conflicts.

In Dragonwatch, a fearless dragon named Celebrant, King of Dragons, wants to reign without borders by returning the world to the Age of Dragons, when dragons, not humans, ruled. Celebrant was actually one of the many heroes of the previous series instrumental in its satisfactory, if not ideal, conclusion. Dragonwatch was an ancient order of wizards, sorceresses, and dragon slayers that subdued the dragons in the past, but nearly all of the former guardians are gone. 

Once again, in the course of the five books (Dragonwatch, Wrath of the Dragon King, Master of the Phantom Isle, Champion of the Titan Games, and Return of the Dragon Slayers), we're treated to a host of compelling creatures including the dragons (both good, evil, and those who could go either way), of course, but also unicorns, giants, fairies, demons, and the king of the undead. Kendra and Seth are unfathomably made co-caretakers of the Wyrmroost dragon prison (along with a wizard). The two main characters we rooted for all through the first series retain the traits we either loved or decried then in this new series. Incidentally, Kendra and Seth's all but missing parents in Fablehaven do put in an appearance this time, eventually, as I wanted them to in the previous series.

In Dragonwatch, the humans, wizards, the characters we've come to love in Fablehaven as well as new ones (Knox and Tess, in particular), and even some previous enemies become allies in this "enemy of my enemy is my friend" plotline. Those assembled in the course of the series form another intriguing cast. Kendra and Seth are separated for most of the stories, as they work to prevent the seven dragon sanctuaries around the globe from falling. But only together can they become the comingled dragon slayer that can end the threat of draconic domination.

As the Fablehaven volumes did, each book starts where the previous one left off, so there's solid conflict from start to finish, and you're immediately plunged into tense scenarios at the beginning while also unable to keep yourself from grabbing the next when one ends.

I've read Fablehaven a number of times, Dragonwatch only once (so far). The creatures pull me in each and every time while the characters keep me on my toes, following them from one (mis)adventures to the next. The suspense is incredible, with each book impossibly better than the previous. I couldn't set any of the stories aside to read something else altogether. I was too enthralled with both series. I read them back to back, barely sleeping until I'd finished them from start to finish. These are keepers worth every penny I spent on them. I expect to read them indefinitely for the rest of my life. Incidentally, while there has been talk of a Fablehaven movie, which would be amazing beyond belief, so far nothing has come of it. Fingers crossed for the future!

In the final installment of this article next week, I'll review Joseph Delaney's Spooksworld, what is, in my opinion, the most fantastic Young Adult fantasy multi-series in existence.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Gender Pronouns

Several years ago at a con session on the fantastic Pixar movie INSIDE OUT, starring personified emotions, someone in the audience asked why characters representing feelings had to be identified as male or female. Why did they need genders at all? The answer didn't occur to me until later: English doesn't have a neuter pronoun for a living, sapient creature. Since the characters of Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust in the film couldn't be called "it," they had to be labeled either "he" or "she." French, Spanish, etc. classify all nouns as masculine or feminine, not just those that refer to living creatures, with pronouns to match. Some other languages such as German and Latin have masculine, feminine, and neuter. However, as I discovered more recently, this requirement to distinguish the sexes by grammatical gender isn't universal among Earth languages.

I was surprised to learn that many languages have no gender pronouns to identify male and female, e.g, Tagalog, Turkish, Estonian, and some Chinese dialects, among others. Some have grammatical gender categorized by traits other than biological sex, such as animate and inanimate. Here's the Wikipedia article on this topic:

Genderless Languages

The Wikipedia page on the broad subject of gender-neutral pronouns in languages with sex-linked gender distinctions, such as English:

Gender Neutrality in Languages with Gendered Pronouns

A detailed overview of grammatical gender, citing several examples that classify nouns according to criteria other than biological sex:

Grammatical Gender

An English speaker's mind is apt to be boggled by the vast number of personal pronouns in Japanese (mine certainly was upon my first exposure to this fact). Many are distinguished by degrees of formality. Not only third-person but first-person pronouns often have masculine or feminine connotations. Some are used predominantly by a particular sex but not always. And some are gender-neutral.

Japanese Pronouns

I don't hold with the Newspeak premise in NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR that language controls thought. (And I don't think many professional linguists nowadays accept that position.) However, available vocabulary does make it easier or harder to talk about certain concepts. I do wonder how American society might be different if English had no gender-specific pronouns. Would people who identify as nonbinary have an easier time if they didn't have to choose invented pronouns or the awkward singular "they"? Would transgender people have it easier if relieved of one difficulty, persuading others to refer to them by their preferred pronouns instead of the "dead" ones? I wonder how language affects such issues in countries with gender-neutral personal pronouns.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Worldbuilding For Multiple Alternate Universes Part 2 - Find Some Crazy Ideas

Worldbuilding For Multiple Alternate Universes

Part 2

Find Some Crazy Ideas

Part 1 - Star Trek Fan Fiction
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2021/01/worldbuilding-for-multiple-alternate.html

We pointed to Star Trek as an example of a TV Show whose fans created fanfic -- some writers attempting to replicate the aired-Trek universe exactly, while others embroidered freehand to create alternate-Trek universes, from which other writers spun off alternate-alternate-Trek universes.

Of course, no matter how hard they tried, fanfic writers never could replicate the aired-Trek characters and ended up with "original" Spocks, Kirks, McCoys, and Scotties (and Uhuras and so on).

Seeing that, other fanfic writers just plain grabbed the archetypes and spun themselves original characters - sometimes using the aired-Trek names, and sometimes adding new characters, or just creating.

Some of those writers soon "went pro" and sold their own original science fiction for professional publication.

You might be surprised to discover how much fiction has been published (in various genres) "inspired by" aired-Trek.

Once inspired, a writer just doesn't stop.

So at some point, the writer originates material that requires several universes, parallel or perpendicular, branching from, and time-line-corrupted -- possibly just a dreamland the Character negotiates.

All of the Main  Characters' adventures as they splash through alternate universes and try to figure out "what the hell is going on" and "how do I get home from here?" -- all while rescuing each other from dire predicaments and sharing quiet moments of bonding -- have to be living a coherent path through their personal lives.

That means the essential theme has to be replicated in all the alternate universes they cross, and their responses have to generate further events (because line) consistent with the underlying premise of the alien universe.

You'll need a lot of material to create such alternate realities and lend them verisimilitude.

OK, so where do you get those crazy ideas from which to spin insane universes for your characters to traverse?

The solidity of your worldbuilding is even more important because it is not the focus, or the reason the readers are turning the pages.

Romance, and yes, Science Fiction, actually focus on the Character Arc - how the Character changes because of the impact of the plot events.

So the important thing about the Setting (which alternate universe they are in) is what they think is happening - much more than what is really happening.

What is really happening can be information the writer has but never imparts to the reader -- or even to the Characters.  What is really happening is the stuff of which sequels are made.

What the Characters think is happening is the most important element in both Science Fiction and Romance because from those inferences, the Characters will launch their responses to Events.  That's how Johnny gets his fanny caught in a bear trap -- the novel is about Johnny's adventures getting it out.

Show don't tell how the Characters responding to an incorrect take on the meaning of Events leads them to do things that just make matters worse.  At the 3/4 point, you can let it dawn on the poor blokes just how wrong they've been, so the "worm turns" and attacks the real problem.

The real problem will yield to that head-on attack, but if you leave out some information, the real problem will die down for a satisfying ending, but then re-grow from deeply buried roots, and attack again -- making a grand sequel.

To sketch out a story-dynamic of this type, the writer has to stockpile material -- sometimes for years and years.

The adage is "write what you know" -- but who knows life on another planet, or how any couple can achieve a "Happily Ever After" in this turbulent world?

The whole point of reading Science Fiction and/or Romance is that you don't know.

That's what makes an "adventure" -- not just that the Characters don't know, but that the writer doesn't know before writing.

But it is also true that the desk drawers (and hard drives) of writers are littered with abandoned books half-written and shelved.

Those projects become abandoned when the writer had to stop writing to do research.

Or it might be that the writer didn't stop writing to do research -- and as a result created a whole universe that just won't work at all.

The way to avoid both kinds of research problems is to be an eclectic and omnivorous reader, and stockpile heaps and heaps of useless information, ideas, points of view, emotions, and all the alternatives that humans have already created down through the ages.  And then just forget it all.

Absolutely forgotten - barely recognize if you ever see it again, forgotten.  No way you could verbalize any explanation but you fully understand it on a non-verbal level.

Once "forgotten" this kind of information forms a compost heap to fertilize the freehand invention of whole universes.

As needed, the writer wallops out a few words to "describe" (or more accurately, evoke) the entire alternate universe the Characters pass through on their adventures.  Two or three vivid details, a symbol, a souvenir or wound, and BAM, they are gone into the next alternate universe.

So what do you research to find bits to shovel into your compost pile of universes?

Actual reality makes a good start.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/05/index-to-worldbuilding-from-reality.html

Theory, theme, ideas, bizarre occurrences (don't get me started on UFO stories!) and yes, even politics and religion, make grand sources of crazy ideas.  Romance writers need to read a lot of non-fiction on psychology, anthropology, sociology, and history.  Science Fiction writers need to read lots of science, peer-reviewed journals, but most importantly "junk science" and pie-in-the-sky theory at the tabloid level and the serious (but made-simple) kind of science reporter level.

Science Fiction Romance writers need both. The reading predates the writing by at least 10 years, if not 20, so start in elementary school.

Biographies are a good starting place, as you can discover which sciences enchant you most by reading the life story of those who have degrees in those fields.  And you need to read lots of biographies to be able to craft a Character Arc that will make your Characters seem real to your readers.

So a fiction writer stocks their compost heap with non-fiction.  A corollary to that is also true: a non-fiction writer stocks their compost heap with fiction.

Here is a non-fiction best seller -- stuffy academic topic; best seller status on Amazon in 2020 -- that weaves Sociology, with Politics, Anthropology, and the theory of governing HUMANS (not non-humans, mind you, so you have a lot of elbow room to create here).

It is a book ABOUT academe, but not academe itself.

It suggests a relationship (which may not be true for humans but might for some alternate universe non-humans) between the flights of fancy of academic philosophers inventing new Disciplines and courses in them, and the everyday "real world" you and I live in.

Maybe there is such a relationship, but it isn't configured the way this book suggests.  Or maybe, hitherto in human history, there has never been such a relationship, but today's academics are creating that relations (so in an alternate universe, what if they succeed? What if they fail? What if the whole thing turns on them?)

Here's the book, and its description from Amazon:

Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody

Print:
https://www.amazon.com/Cynical-Theories-Scholarship-Everything-Identity_and/dp/1634312023/

Kindle:
https://www.amazon.com/Cynical-Theories-Scholarship-Everything-Identity-ebook/dp/B08BGCM5QZ/

------blurb from Amazon------
Have you heard that language is violence and that science is sexist? Have you read that you shouldn't practice yoga or cook Chinese food? Are you confused by these ideas and wonder how they have managed to challenge so quickly the very logic of Western society? In this probing and intrepid volume, Helen Pluckrose and James A. Lindsay document the evolution of this dogma, from its coarse origins in French postmodernism to its refinement within activist academic fields. As Pluckrose and Lindsay warn, the unchecked proliferation of these anti-Enlightenment beliefs presents a threat not only to liberal democracy but also to modernity itself. Only through a proper understanding of the evolution of these ideas can those who value science, reason, and consistently liberal ethics successfully challenge this dangerous and authoritarian orthodoxy.

--------end blurb------

Here's a quote from one of the early reviews:

------quote------
....This book gives a detailed history of the movement to destroy liberal principles and replace them with Wokeness. It makes what is happening on our streets make sense. It explains the absurdity of things like the videos going around as I write this, of restaurant patrons being harassed by thugs screaming in their faces and demanding that they make a show of obedience and fealty to the mob.

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

This book details a neat way of looking at history -- the evolution of IDEAS -- and it lends itself to Romance so very easily.

Take a couple, one holding one view on this matter, and the other holding the opposite view, each used to hanging out with people who reinforce their views.  What does she see in him?  What does he see in her?

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-does-she-see-in-him.html

But love conquers all, right?

Can such a couple survive without killing each other, or themselves Romeo and Juliet style?

The essence of story is conflict -- and I can't see anyone reading this book without fulminating with conflict.

If the topic doesn't  catch your attention, go on Amazon and put this paper copy book in your cart, then watch what Amazon recommends would interest you.  Find a topic you can fulminate over, read some of the books Amazon recommends (check ABE books for used copies, you likely won't want to keep), and then just forget the whole thing.

In a few years, you will "have an idea" for a novel.  Your idea will sprout from the compost heap of balderdash, bravado, and homespun nonsense you read and forgot years and years previously.

This non-fiction best seller contains the material for two, maybe three, whole alternate universes for your Characters to tromp through and fight about (and for, and against).  Don't ignore these kinds of books, and don't sell them short as source material for your compost heap.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Worldbuilding From Reality Part 10 Does It Matter If Arousal Is Gender Specific?

Worldbuilding From Reality

Part 10

Does It Matter If Arousal Is Gender Specific? 

Previous parts in the Worldbuilding From Reality series:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/05/index-to-worldbuilding-from-reality.html

When building a fictional world that an audience will find "immersive," stealing a few bits from Reality -- the shared reality among members of that audience, and your own reality - is the easiest way to go

So looking at old cliche aphorisms and sayings can be very productive.

• "The way to a man's heart is through is stomach."
• 
  
• "Seeing is believing."
• 
  
• "Love at first sight."  
• 
  
• "His eyes are bigger than his stomach."
• 
  
• "Flattery will get you everywhere."  

For centuries, mothers have been teaching daughters that the way to "get" a man is to present yourself with whatever "appearance" (style, manner, dress, speech, hip-sway walk) was currently deemed proper-but-hot by the extant culture, and social circle.

In other words, if you want the part, dress the part.

Clothing, hairdo, perfume, matching shoes, makeup (even if you're too young to need it), walking with a book on your head, speaking only when spoken to, diction, modulating voice, sitting with knees together, crossing legs at a slant, precisely correct undergarments (used to be corsets pulled tight), are all necessary, all things taught in "finishing school" to give the impression you are a woman who "knows her place."

Oh, boy, has the world changed.

Good grief, has nothing really changed?  

Today, sexy-long-hair worn loose -- a style from 60 years ago -- is back, but this time with short, tight, shrink-wrap dresses cut down to here!

The pants suit has given way to body-clinging skirts and dresses of stretch fabrics that really do what people tried to do with thin-knit wool.

All this fussing (expensive fussing with hair, dye, makeup, premium diet food, gym memberships) to present a vibrantly feminine appearance.

All of this is based on the oldest old-saw, that males are turned on by VISUAL CUES.  They will follow their eyes.

But women are different.  Women want something else (which has not been adequately defined.  Admiration, attention, protection of strength, a good provider, praise, exclusivity?  Women differ from each other, and change throughout life.

In science fiction world building, we take ONE (and only one) settled, irrefutable, well proven, widely accepted fact about reality and challenge it.

Science fiction is a busman's holiday for scientists.  It is entertainment for the adventurous thinker who is entertained by intellectual stretching.

So we have the suspension of disbelief - which is easy if there is one and only one thing to not disbelieve.  If the writer lards on a whole series of randomly selected premises, the systematic thinkers in the audience will just leave - drop the book in the trash, bad-mouth it to colleagues.

If the writer focuses tightly on refuting one, and only one, known fact, then builds a world where that single element differs from the audience's reality, and pursues that difference to a rigorous, logical conclusion, then the Stephen Hawkins's of this world will devour that novel and talk about it loudly.

We have discussed targeting a readership in great detail:

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

When discussing screenwriting, and the how-to books in the SAVE THE CAT! series by Blake Snyder, we discussed "High Concept" storytelling.

The "concept" is the core of the pitch a writer uses - one sentence, one paragraph, the elevator pitch - to sell a project to a publisher.  And the publicist uses a different description of the same work to sell it to the prospective audience.

The Concept is a topic of interest to a segment of humanity, stated in terms that are comprehensible to that segment.

We are currently (and once again) wrestling with the entire concept of I.Q. - of intelligence -- or just of what is it that defines what we recognize in each other as a difference.

We all can enter a room full of people and instantly recognize if we belong there, if "they" will accept us, or if there's any reason to accept them.

We see, know, and recognize differences, and act on that inner knowledge.

More than a century ago, the concept I.Q. - a mathematically measurable trait to define that "difference," - was invented to make it easy to tag people objectively.

It didn't work. It doesn't work. But very clearly there is promise that something science can measure WILL eventually work.  We have pursued genetics and now neurological brain studies, and all sorts of spiritual and scientific paths of investigation .

Bottom line -- we are clueless!

Nevertheless, we persist.  This means here is an area where fiction can inspire new generations to innovate, create new options that can change everything - for real.

Here is one graphic that turned up to my attention on Quora, on one of the many threads about I.Q., that I keep pondering from a world building perspective.

http://www2.psych.utoronto.ca/users/reingold/courses/intelligence/cache/1198gottfredbox2.html

We discussed this one previously:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/10/mysteries-of-pacing-part-2-romance-at.html

Notice how FEW people have very high or very low IQ. Low IQ people, the below 70 segment, are likely not going to be reading text novels.  The high IQ segment, over 130, will likely spend their reading time (and they read VERY fast) focusing on their technical area of expertise, or kicked back watching football.

The segment between 90 and 120 is the biggest segment of the readership and just where you'll find an audience for mixed-genre such as Science Fiction Romance, Paranormal Romance.

Notice it's 100 (the average) to 110 who learn from written materials.

Those are an important segment of book-buyers, and many will buy Romance novels.

This segment of readers will buy novels that address topics where they'd like to learn something -- Historical Romance, Science Fiction, that have real world facts, but challenge one (AND ONLY ONE) of those facts to generate a world and a story that makes them think, re-evaluate reality.

These are the people who enjoy imagining.

Such novels are not "High Concept."

What Hollywood means by High Concept is a story springboard that is familiar and attractive, easily understandable by the vast majority of humanity.

Ideas that excite I.Q. 120 and above will not be comprehensible to I.Q. 90 and below.  So they are low concept -- you can't spend a fortune making such a film and get your investment back on opening weekend.

However, most anything an IQ 90 audience can get their teeth into will be comprehensible, and sometimes even entertaining, to I. Q. 120 and above, if it has enough action, innuendo, and gosh-wow special effects.

"High Concept" means a broader audience, which requires an appeal to both high and low I.Q. because no matter what, humans come in that bell-curve spread of abilities.

Concept is almost entirely involved with world building -- the setting, the rules, the Character Relationships not too complex, and the humor.

I. Q. and that bell curve distribution by social and job outcome includes (theoretically) both men and women.  These days, one assumes it is a jumble of "all genders."  In fact, today the very concept of "gender" is finally being explored in depth.

Science Fiction has long explored the flippant way humans just toss off facts about gender.

More than 50 years ago, after it became known that some animals shift gender, Ursula LeGuin won both the Hugo and Nebula for The Left Hand of Darkness

featuring people who shift gender, and the emotional impact of that shifting.
https://amazon.com/Left-Hand-Darkness-Science-Fiction-ebook/dp/B00YBA7PGW/

And now science is exploring exactly how some animals shift gender:

https://www.inverse.com/article/57524-animal-sex-switch-bluehead-wrasse

Before I read Left Hand of Darkness, I took a page from some of the even older science fiction works exploring gender to create a tri-sexual species for some of my Characters in my Star Trek fanfic work, Kraith.

http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/kraith/

I used some of those concepts in my two novels, Molt Brother

and City of a Million Legends.

https://amazon.com/Molt-Brother-Lifewave-Book-1-ebook/dp/B004AYCTBA/

https://amazon.com/City-Million-Legends-First-Lifewave-ebook/dp/B007KPLRUU/

One of the world building premises of my Sime~Gen novels is that when humans split into Sime and Gen, the difference between Sime and Gen far eclipses the male-female difference which still remains but is important only some of the time.

https://amazon.com/gp/product/B074CG7LBJ/   

Gender, per se, has long been a topic of interest to science fiction readers because of the mysteries about sexuality left to be explored with science.  And it is one of the science topics that I. Q. 90 and below can fully grasp.  Therefore "sex sells" -- or gender based science fiction (e.g. science fiction romance) is high concept, and sells big time.

So recently, science has been addressing what science fiction long ago proposed as a key topic -- is there a difference between men and women?

From the point of view of an Alien from Outer Space, there might be no perceptible difference.  Humans come in so many sizes, shapes, and colors that gender simply gets lost in the mosaic.

From the point of view of a human, and most of your readers are probably somewhat human, gender matters, big time.

Science, however, may be edging up to the conclusion that gender doesn't matter.

Here is a study of human brain activity (which may or may not actually be true) indicating that the male and female brains exhibit little if any difference when becoming sexually aroused.

https://www.inverse.com/article/57689-meta-analysis-sexual-arousal-brain-differences-men-and-women

We are more alike than we are different.

A science fiction romance writer should be pondering the next scientific discovery, the next big data deep dive analysis that will reveal what we've known all along -- or refute it -- that men respond more strongly to visual cues than women do.

Both men and women enjoy the sight of a potential mate in full feather.  No doubt about that.  But maybe social constructs, cultural myths made real, have conditioned us to exaggerating the male response to the sight of an eligible female?

Maybe the sight of a well-dressed, polished female does not render a male helplessly aroused?  Maybe boys are raised (thus have brain circuitry configured) to assume they are helpless and so, during the teen years, do not develop selectivity.

Therefore, men used to blame their behavior on women - because of how the women dress.  Many still do, but there is cultural blow-back against this notion.  The whole "sexual harassment in the workplace" issue is based on the idea that men are NOT helpless if they glimpse a tightly-dressed female behind.

There was a time when showing a bit of ankle, even clad in high-laced boots, was a sexual come-on before which the male was utterly helpless.

For most of human history, humans didn't wear very much in the way of clothing.  The naked body is not, per se, a sexual invitation.  The entire concept of "modest dress" depends on being able to dress at all.

Yet once clothing options became available, the choice of what to wear when in the sight of whom became a code for sexual availability.

By Biblical Times, there were already exacting standards of "modesty," of ways of saying, "I am not available to you."

Biblically derived cultures insist on men and women dressing modestly (i.e. as not-available) in public.

They all have different ideas of why we should dress modestly, and vastly different codes of what constitutes modesty, all of which shift drastically through the centuries.

Even today, women cover their hair to indicate un-availability.  One excuse for this is that a woman's hair is sexually arousing.  But men's hair is identical when allowed to grow.

In Star Trek, Roddenberry adopted the then-extant code of having unavailable women wear their long hair bound up, but down and loose when they wanted to be available.

In every era (so far) people have blamed intrinsic, unalterable, inexorable male response for the dress codes they have imposed on women.

Only now, science has shown there is no such thing.

Men are not more visually aroused than women.  The brain patterns and responses just don't show a distinct difference.

So the imposition of dress codes (on men or on women) are clearly artificial, and thus subject to choice.

Your current potential audience is part of the current sweeping alteration in dress coding for availability.

How, where and when does a human signal sexual availability?

How do humans learn to choose when to become aroused, and when not to?

Just as it is possible for a woman to learn not to cry (military training imposes this by force), likewise it is possible for a male human to learn not to be aroused by female clothing, hair, exposed skin, even cleavage.

But what do you have to put a boy through so that the resulting man will have full command of that choice?  Today, wouldn't that count as child abuse?

So the scientific facts, what the general public believes about the scientific facts of gender, and the cultural norms all matter when you build a world around themes derived from gender specific responses to stimuli.

How much is culture, how much is choice, how much is real?  Does sexual arousal render humans morally unanswerable for the consequences of their actions?  Where does Soul fit into physiological responses?

Is there such a thing as irresistible temptation? Or is there only human stupidity?  Note that IQ graph page - higher I. Q. humans seem to be better at foreseeing consequences.

Here's another I. Q. article to ponder:
https://www.vox.com/2016/5/24/11723182/iq-test-intelligence

Higher I. Q. seems to protect from death.  (note how it's the exception that proves the rule)

Clearly, this I. Q. measurement thing is onto something -- what that something might be is clearly unclear!  This is the gray area science fiction romance was invented to explore.  Romance (Neptune Transit) suspends the ability to make realistic, practical decisions, using I. Q.  Smart people and intelligence-challenged people all together, all experience this Romance effect.  Romance is High Concept - comprehensible to all I.Q. segments - but according to this Swedish study, a slender portion of humanity has a better chance at long life.

Romance is the Happily Ever After genre -- but according to that article, I. Q. does not correlate to Happiness.  At least, not for humans.

In Romance, not all your characters have to be ultra-smart, but in science fiction, you need some really smart Characters for the scientists to identify with.

Build your world around gender, challenge one (and only one) premise we take for granted about gender, sexuality and the relationship between them, and write a High Concept, Mass Market Best Seller that can become the basis of a TV Series (the streaming market is huge and growing, as noted here:)

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/11/targeting-readership-part-17-original.html

In Science Fiction Romance, you can invent Aliens whose culture is rooted in how "happiness" is in fact correlated with I. Q. (whatever that is for them).

So maybe your Alien is hired as a tutor for a Human who needs to learn to choose when to be aroused by the sight of an enticing female?  Only it turns out the enticing female is the Soul Mate of the Alien?

Hoo-boy, the world is about to change!  So apparently it will matter if arousal is gender specific.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Pregnant Males

Do you follow THE ORVILLE? This TV series begins as an affectionate parody of STAR TREK (even the uniforms look similar) but—as far as I can tell from reading about it and watching the first few episodes—gradually becomes more serious. One alien officer, who lives on board with his mate, belongs to an all-male species. In the second episode, he lays an egg, which hatches in the third episode. I'm not sure why he refuses to take a break from brooding the egg; doesn't his mate help? And what about an artificial incubator? Anyway, the baby turns out to be female, a rare abnormality in this species, for which the standard remedy is an immediate sex-change operation. The serious ramifications of this problem mesh incongruously with the premise of an all-male, oviparous species, which the writers apparently introduced in accordance with what the TV Tropes site calls "the Rule of Funny." In fact, an all-male species that reproduces by itself couldn't exist. The sex that produces ova is, by definition, female. To lay eggs, people of the species portrayed in THE ORVILLE would have to be either female (reproducing by parthenogenesis) or hermaphroditic. Members of an all-male species would have to breed with females of some closely related species (as some all-female types of fish can be fertilized by males of different but not too dissimilar species).

The vintage sitcom MORK AND MINDY gets away with the pregnant alien male motif by presenting it in a funny context with no attempt at a biological rationale. Mork not only becomes pregnant, he gives birth to a "baby" who looks like an old man and, conforming to the life cycle of Mork's species, ages backward.

Octavia Butler described her classic work "Bloodchild" as her "pregnant man story." Technically, the human men don't get pregnant, though. They serve as hosts for the eggs of the centipede-like aliens who've allowed the Terran colonists to settle on their planet. When the larvae hatch, the mother removes them from the host's body before they start to eat their way out—usually.

The TV program ALIEN NATION offers a serious portrayal of how a seahorse-like humanoid male pregnancy could work. The Newcomer aliens have three sexes, including a variant type of male who penetrates the female to catalyze her fertility in some unspecified process before the father inseminates her in the "usual" way. The embryo begins to develop in the female's uterus. Part-way through the pregnancy, the fetus is transferred (in a pool of water) from the female to the male, where it grows in a pouch on the man's abdomen. The baby comes out when the pouch splits open in the course of labor.

Here's a page of speculation about how a single-sex species (female) could work in terms of Earth biology:

Single-Sex Species

In Joanna Russ's classic story "When It Changed," members of the all-female population reproduce by combining ova from two different women.

In isogamy, displayed by some life-forms such as algae and fungi, all gametes have the same size and morphology and so can be considered of the "same sex," which can't technically be labeled either male or female:

Isogamy

Some Earth organisms switch reproductive methods in alternate generations between sexual and asexual reproduction (e.g., budding).

The heroine of Megan Lindholm's CLOVEN HOOVES falls in love with a satyr she thinks of as Pan. This highly unusual novel starts out as, apparently, fantasy, in which at first we can't even be sure the paranormal encounters are happening outside the heroine's mind. Eventually, however, the story becomes SF, when the satyr reveals that he belongs to an all-male species whose members reproduce by implanting clones of themselves into human women through sexual intercourse. Thus, when the heroine gives birth to her satyr baby son, he isn't biologically related to her at all.

The occasional birth of females among the alien race on THE ORVILLE suggests a possibility for the evolution of their alleged all-male species. Maybe they once reproduced alternately sexually (through ordinary mating between male and female) and asexually (by cloning). Maybe some genetic disorder caused the conception of females to cease except in rare cases. Asexual reproduction became the only remaining viable means of perpetuating the species and came to be considered the only normal way. So when the male character in that series lays an egg, he's producing a clone of himself.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Dialogue Part 15 Writing Inner Dialogue of Soul Mates

Dialogue 
Part 15

Writing Inner Dialogue of Soul Mates

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

Previous parts of the Dialogue series are indexed here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/10/dialogue-parts-1-4-listed.html

We visualize the wedding moment as divine intervention to make life Happily Ever After - it is a supernatural moment.

A wedding is the beginning of a new life.  It changes everything including your self-image.

Usually, all the Romance happens before the wedding -- the wedding scene may be the final scene of the novel.

Sometimes, the story is about what happens if the anticipated inflection point of getting married somehow aborts -- one or the other gets cold feet, one or the other is accidentally killed on the way to the wedding, one or the other is put in the hospital by an accident at the verge of death, or one of them is murdered or deliberately attacked and left hospitalized.  Possibly, an ex or some jealous stalker emerges or a love-child situation is revealed during the ceremony.

Drama (Pluto is Drama) abounds at the peak pivotal moments of life.

The bigger the pivot the more spectacular and singular the drama.

For example, true Soul Mates rammed together by circumstances may experience Hate At First Sight.  Most Romance readers do understand this dynamic -- that the intensity of the aversion can be the sign that these two are Soul Mates.

Not just lovers, or two people having an affair or a one-night-stand -- but true Soul Mates.

Months ago, there was an article posted online at mindbodygreen.com that pointed out what all Romance readers know.

---------quote---------
Many years ago, I was sitting with a couple in my office, marveling about what a "perfect fit" they were: They were both into healthy living, rescue dogs, and hiking. They didn’t argue, their facial expressions were kind, and their nonverbal signals showed they cared.

Despite this, they were talking about ending their relationship. They couldn’t describe what was wrong, but both felt the relationship was empty. I followed the usual process: We looked for places of trouble, which were few, and explored the good parts of their relationship, which were many. However, it was as if a spark between them was never lit. In the end, they felt it was best to part amicably, which they did.

That session was followed by an hour with another couple who didn’t stop arguing from the moment they walked in the door. They had been waiting all week to "tell on the other," i.e., talk about the agreements each had broken and the far-reaching arguments about washing the dishes or sex, all with a plethora of eye-rolling and grimacing. However, the passion between them was palpable; under the power struggle, there was a lot of interest and passion. We worked hard for months, and they were eventually able to break their destructive loop and spend more time living with the pleasure they found in each other.

These two stories point to one of the most important truths my 35 years of working with couples has shown me. Though we know many of the qualities and skills that make a great relationship—most of which can be learned—there is no rule book for what makes two people work. Sometimes people just know their relationships are over; other times, even though it’s hard, they are willing to do the work to make it good again.

There are times you MUST leave ...

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

Read the article at:
https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/how-to-know-when-its-time-to-walk-away-from-your-marriage\

It is full of great novel ideas about when to admit the "Happily Ever After" so anticipated at the wedding is not going to happen, and what to do about it.

As a writer, look inside yourself and then examine the people closest to you -- you will find an abundance of "internal conflict" which is the raw material of such drama, the kind of deep realization that your HEA didn't happen -- and won't.  Many, in the grip of this realization or those suppressing the realization of this truth leap directly from "I don't have it" to "It does not exist."

What evidence would you accept that the HEA is real, possible, and you missed your chance?

Soul Mates are two individual, and very different, people who are two halves of a whole -- they become one at the wedding.  That's what "wedding" means - it is a word used in wine making for mixing two wines, so you can't take them apart again.

But once married, building a life together -- jobs, commutes, buying cars, choosing a house or condo or apartment, furnishing it, having children (or deciding not to), thousands of individual decisions suddenly become joint projects.

The two become one.

What is going on inside one person splashes over into the inside of the other.

The more emotionally heated the anger, love, passion, offense, indignation, jealousy, resentment, and demands that YOU (not me) change behavior -- the more likely the two actually do belong together.

Their inner conflicts have crashed into each other, and shards of hard-headed rocks are flying everywhere.  Bystanders can be sliced to the bone as collateral damage.

True Soul Mates rarely meet in tranquility and sail blissfully on into a calm life.

Depicting a pair of Soul Mates on their shake-down cruise is a serious challenge for a Romance writer who wants to explore passionate sex and carefree joys because after the honeymoon is over, the conflicts become riptides pulling the couple apart.

The inner dialogue - the unspoken thoughts - of such a pair differ as male and female differ, but reflect each other.  Each seeks justice which means having their own expectations fulfilled.  Or, with some, the inner dialogue is about fulfilling the expectations of the Other and having that fulfillment acknowledged in a specific way.

For example, the 2018 culture is grappling with the conflicts between the traditional image of "Being A Man" and a new self-image for healthy masculinity that has not yet crystalized.

It will take 4 generations for such attitudes to be "natural" to men and women, and the transition will be confusing.

Fiction writers can explore these options with inner dialogue -- and how what one person in the couple is thinking one thing, but forcing themselves to do another.

Last Spring a huge misunderstanding of a University of Texas program erupted around the idea that a University was officially regarding masculinity as a mental illness.  (What A Theme!)

But that's not exactly what was really going on.

---- quote -----

The University of Texas is facing ridicule after a new program called “MasculinUT” was announced in a way that insinuated it was treating masculinity as a mental health crisis.. The university has attempted to explain the program as simply an effort to “bring more men to the table to address interpersonal violence, sexual assault and other issues,” but the reality is that UT is still promoting a facetious connection between masculinity and assault and violence.

When the program was originally announced, its stated goal was to help male UT students “take control over their gender identity and develop a healthy sense of masculinity.” as PJ Media reported:

The program is predicated on a critique of so-called “restrictive masculinity.” Men, the program argues, suffer when they are told to “act like a man” or when they are encouraged to fulfill traditional gender roles, such as being “successful” or “the breadwinner.”

Though you might enjoy “taking care of people” or being “active,” MasculinUT warns that many of these attributes are actually dangerous, claiming that “traditional ideas of masculinity place men into rigid (or restrictive) boxes [which]… prevent them from developing their emotional maturity.”

“If you are a male student at UT reading this right now, we hope that learning about this helps you not to feel guilty about having participated in these definitions of masculinity, and instead feel empowered to break the cycle!” the program offers.

As mentioned above, the program is also run by UT’s Counseling and Mental Health Center “[l]ike other UT programs related to sexual assault and interpersonal violence.” And the website’s stated “project goals and guiding principles” still focus on the idea that certain types of masculine emotions and traits are negative and connected to sexual assault and violence.

For example, they are making an effort to “[p]romote an ethic of care for men and masculine-identified individuals who cannot escape expectations of masculinity,” “‘[e]ncourage a wider range of acceptable emotions,” and “[d]ecrease excessive competition and increase empathy.”

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

Read the article at:
https://www.redstate.com/sarah-rumpf/2018/04/30/new-program-university-texas-conflates-masculinity-sexual-assault/

There is certainly enough material regarding the female self-image, and the idea that a woman "should be" this and never that (whatever the this or that involved in the current culture's demand might be) for writers to depict a woman's inner dialogue as bemoaning the requirement.

All of this raises the science question which makes the essence of Science Fiction Romance -- "what exactly is gender?"

And do Souls come in genders?  Kabbalah says yes, Souls are locked in a single, specific gender lifetime to lifetime.

Science Fiction plays with the theory that Souls can reincarnate as human even if their prior lifetime was non-human.  And the idea of a male reincarnating as a female is common.  Most Science Fiction TV shows (including Star Trek) played with the idea of a male identity being trapped in a female body (or vice versa).

If you want to write a novel involving Soul transfers, be sure to do a state-of-the-art search and read up on what has been done -- there is much more to say on this topic!

Consider if reversing gender for a day would change the Character's inner dialogue.  Is the inner dialogue a product of gender or of mis-match between Soul and body's gender, or merely of societal expectations?

What exactly is gender?

The question is relevant to the idea of "Mates" -- as we are currently challenging the age-old assumption that Mates must be a pair of opposite gendered people.

Does gender come in opposite?  Is it this OR that but nothing in between?

Is gender optional?  Are Souls neuter?

All of these questions must be answered only if the answers differ from your reader's everyday world.  These questions frame the world you are building around your story.

Consider the example from the marriage counsellor noted above, where the couple arrived arguing the moment they walked in the door.  If they exchanged genders, would they still be Soul Mates?  Would they also exchange arguments and the fighting just go on without missing a beat?

Is the reason they are arguing simply that one is trapped in a gender whose expectations he/she can not meet?  (Men to be the bread winner; women to bear and raise children).

Would expectations have to be adjusted in such a situation, to result in an HEA?  What hammering drama would have to pound their heads together to create such an adjustment?

Find answers to those questions and cast them as simple statements -- and you've created a THEME.  Telling the story may be harder than anything you've ever done.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com