Theme-Character Integration Part 7 Defining Character Strength by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Character Integration
Part 7
Defining Character Strength
by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts in this sequence on Theme-Character Integration:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/06/theme-character-integration-part-6-hero.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/theme-character-integration-part-5-fame.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-character-integration-part-4.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-character-integration-part-3-why.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-character-integration-part-2-fire.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/06/theme-character-integration-part-1-what.html

Here is a TV Series Episode that clearly and cleanly defines the interface between Theme and Character-strength.

The Series is INTELLIGENCE on CBS and the episode in question is titled ATHENS.

http://www.cbs.com/shows/intelligence/episodes/212922

This is Episode 9 of the First Season.

Why is that important?  Because strength of character is abstract, illusive, and a trait that is "revealed" one component at a time, not on the first page of a novel or the pilot for a TV Series.

"Strength" of character means one thing to an editor, producer, or agent, and another to the writer -- yet another to viewers/buyers.

What one person sees as strong another sees as weak.

The assessment of a character is very much based on the end-customer's View of the Universe and is idiosyncratic -- very, very personal.

Strength of Character is a Trait that can answer the question "What does she see in him" that is the core of Romance, but is especially relevant to Science Fiction Romance (my favorite kind).

INTELLIGENCE is a mundane science fiction romance -- and a pretty good one.

The couple in question is an ex-soldier who volunteered to have a "chip" inserted into his brain (which works because he has a certain rare genetic mutation) and the woman assigned to be his bodyguard and protector because he's worth maybe a billion dollars (remember the 6 Million Dollar Man?  this is an UPDATED version.)

So episode by episode (or for a novel, chapter by chapter) we have seen this man's character revealed as the attraction between the two Special Forces grade individuals heats up.

At first wary, the mutual respect is established and grown as each saves the other from harrowing circumstances, and they develop teamwork precision like a circus act where each puts his life in the hands of the others.

And meanwhile, respect grows with the management team sending them on missions, and the tech team that works the "chip" miracles.

So we have many "variables" of character traits filled in for both these people and a really neat ROMANCE blooming nicely. 

Now, remember this is a CBS drama, not USA CHARACTERS WELCOME.

There are two "beats" (see Blake Snyder's SAVE THE CAT! screenwriting instruction series for beats definition) to pay attention to in order to learn to assess a "strong character" for the fiction market, and then to analyze many examples, then create some of your own.

Here's the story.  Gabriel, the fellow with the chip in his head, gets amnesia (long international terrorist plot business that's irrelevant).  When he wakes up in the middle of the attack on his headquarters without any memory of who these people are, he doesn't know the good guys from the bad guys.

3/4 through the episode, when he's now convinced the attackers are the good guys and he's helping them beat his real friends, the showdown scene, the turning point into the final act, is his bodyguard eye-to-eye with him trying to convince him that she is the "good-guys" side and the attackers are the bad-guys.

Gabriel's chip has been hacked in such a way that the data attached to his friends' personnel files has been changed to make them seem like bad guys, killers, victimizers of children.

The DATA shows the bad guys as the good guys.

Riley (his bodyguard) stares Gabriel in the eye and tells him to stop thinking and just FEEL -- telling him that his memory of facts is gone, but his FEELINGS originate in another part of the brain and are more reliable in sorting good from bad.

This is the NEW CULTURE PARADIGM we see in all these most  popular TV shows.

This entire generation of viewers has been educated from primary school to understand the world in terms of feelings and to put aside all facts in favor of what feels right.  (look for that theme if you haven't noticed it -- it sells big time in Romance).

We see in Romance -- if you read some written in the 1950's and 1960's then skip ahead to 2000, you will note this trend, then follow it back decade by decade until you locate the turning point in philosophy -- the theme that lust and passion are irresistible, that there's no use trying to use intellect to over-ride animal lust, and that all hook-ups or even marriage must have searing-passionate-animal-lust as the foundation.

That might correlate to the divorce-rate rise -- a statistical researcher might get a paper out of it.

But to sell fiction, you have to understand the world the reader thinks is real in order to invoke suspension-of-disbelief.  So pay attention to the cultural shift from THINK FIRST, and STOP CRYING OR I'LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT upbringings, to DON'T EVER OFFEND ANYBODY.

The worst crime children learn about in primary school is making someone feel bad by doing something better than they can do it.  Everyone gets a certificate of merit, a prize, a ribbon, just for showing up, so the incapable won't feel bad about being incapable. 

So we see this EMOTION trumps THOUGHT as a major, cultural assumption, a philosophy, and that makes it THEMATIC MATERIAL.

In this episode of INTELLIGENCE, we see one of the love-interest characters convince the other love-interest character that you can tell the good guys from the bad guys by how you FEEL and that all data, all facts, all thought is unreliable.

The story is rigged so that in this instance, that is actually true -- and that rigging is what makes this a beautiful example of THEME.

The "Character" element that integrates with the theme is that Gabriel - the chip-guy - buys it.  He relies on how he feels about Riley and throws in with his employers against the invaders.

And he wins the day back for them.

Then the STRENGTH of character scene comes at the end, final tag of the episode, where it is made crystal clear that emotions trump facts or thought.  How you feel is the only important and determining factor. 

So this series defines "STRONG CHARACTER" as someone with the courage to act on emotion-only against all the facts.  Facts are unreliable; emotions are the truth.

You know that the TV Series Intelligence is still using the same mechanism to create "strong characters" for an audience because this episode which showcases and defines "strong character" first wipes out Gabriel's memory of facts, then replaces the facts with lies.  When he's convinced the lies are truth, he still acts like Gabriel -- loyal and strong, and ferociously protective of children. 

The script bores right to the core of the definition of Strong Character by removing Intellect from Reliable Information Source.  By eliminating that one factor, the script reveals the unspoken cultural assumption of the definition of high moral fiber.  The best people strive to follow their heart, not their brain.  So lies don't matter (because nobody will pay attention to them), but feelings do matter.

If you dig back a few decades you will find all TV action-shows, all Science Fiction, and most Romance depicted the STRONG character as the one who followed Intellect, determined and cross-tested facts, and "did the right thing" regardless of how they felt about an issue, regardless of the emotional loss or pain they might cause themselves or anyone. 

Today the definition of what illustrates "strength of character" has done a 180.

However, the actual writing craftsmanship is still the same!

"Strong Character" in fiction is defined by the integration between the character's emotional life and the character's external, fact-based life.

The concept "Integration" means essentially that two elements merge to form a third, and that the proportions of each ingredient are defined so that the "third" they create has a recognizable consistency.  That's a marketing thing.  Large markets are created by producing consistent products that are all the same -- if you buy Tide to wash your clothes, and buy another package with exactly the same LABEL next month, you expect the new package to contain the same washing-power.  Likewise with books - if it says Science Fiction Romance or Paranormal Romance or Vampire Romance, it better deliver just like all the others under that label.

So today's market is looking for characters who have an unshakeable dedication to following their feelings and ignoring all intellectually ascertained facts.

It is the UNSHAKEABLE trait that is the defining ingredient in "Strong Character." 

No matter what happens, that integration point between intellect and emotion will not change in that character -- not amnesia, not maiming, not disabling, not disease, not helplessness, not imprisonment, not torture, not anything will alter the proportions of Intellect and Emotion behind plot-moving decisions and actions. 

That integration point is stable, meaning the character is both sane and admirable.

It's the exact same writing technique -- the exact opposite message.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Plot-Character Integration: Part 1, The 3/4 Point Pivot: The Worm Turns by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Plot-Character Integration:
Part 1,
The 3/4 Point Pivot
The Worm Turns
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 
We've talked about Theme-Character integration for 6 entries now.

Here's #6 on the Hero vs the Bully
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/06/theme-character-integration-part-6-hero.html

Much of this is based on this method of constructing an opening to any story:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/01/constructing-opening-of-action-romance.html

And here is the index to Theme-Plot Integration series:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/index-to-theme-plot-integration.html

Theme-Plot Integration index has now been updated with more posts on acquiring the ability to carve out a theme and state that theme within a PLOT.

"Plot" is very concrete, very specific, well defined and easy to learn to distinguish from "story" for the purposes of this analysis.

Here is the post defining "plot" in contrast to "story". 
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/plot-vs-story.html

Both "theme" and "character" are amorphous clouds it's very hard to get your head around. 

Theme is based on "philosophy" -- which despite being a couple thousand years old as a discipline (think Socrates) is still rather ill defined as a subject. 

Meanwhile a story "character" is based on how people internalize and use "philosophy" without even knowing they have one.

In fact, the biggest percentage of your audience as a Romance Writer is composed of readers who are convinced they do not have a philosophy, and are bored by philosophy.  They love Love -- not "philosophy."   

Put theme and character together and you wander away into mists of confusion that just don't produce entertainment.  Add plot, and presto, the mists crystallize into bemusing patterns like snowflakes.

Ruminating on theme or character won't  articulate words that a publisher can take to the marketing department expecting sales.

What marketers can sell is PLOT.

"Plot" as I've defined it throughout these posts is simply the sequence of EVENTS that happen on a BECAUSE LINE.

That's why so many books on writing craft tell (without showing) you to keep the reader turning pages by making them eager to know "what happens next."  The word "happens" is key, but "next" is vital to creating a plot. 

Plot is a structure.  Like "time" structures our reality, "plot" structures our fiction. 

There are just two plots that work across all genres: 

A) Johnny gets his fanny caught in a bear trap and has his adventures getting it out.
B) A likeable hero struggles against seemingly overwhelming odds toward a worthwhile goal.

That's it.  If you've got anything other than one of those two -- you don't have a widely marketable work.

Note each of those 2 basic types of plot integrates Character into the plot action. 

It takes a character to make something "happen next."  It takes a character to make readers care what happens next -- because what happens must happen to someone who deserves it (or doesn't deserve it.)

One more clue that I discovered by myself:

C) stay on your BECAUSE-LINE.  Plot=Because.

PLOT= CHESS -- that's it, a novel is a chess game between your student (your main POV character is your sock-puppet or student of Living Life) and your reader.

At your opening scene, the Character who will be the HERO -- the character whose story you are telling, DOES SOMETHING.  "Johnny gets his fanny" or "hero struggles."

Remember, your POV character is playing the WHITE PIECES and thus MAKES THE FIRST MOVE.

That's how you find the opening scene of your novel -- look for the singular point in your main character's whole life where they made that ONE SINGULAR fateful decision and took action on it.  Look for that singular point in his/her life where they had to play the white pieces and thus make the first move.

The singularity of that moment in a Life is what "hooks" the reader into wanting to know what happens NEXT. 

"The Plot" is the series of consequences of that initial decision/action.

For example, a soldier just returned from war "saves the cat" ... standing in line at a hot-dog stand, he hears a BOOM and reflexively sweeps the strange woman standing in front of him behind a car.

A building collapses on them, but they're in a sheltered cave under all that rubble.  They get acquainted as the rescue squad digs them out.  As a CONSEQUENCE (i.e. because) this man survived to return from war, this woman's life is saved.

What HAPPENS NEXT is the because line -- what are the further life-directing consequences of his reflex action? 

Is this fellow "Johnny" and the woman his 'bear trap' he must struggle free of?  Or is PTSD his bear-trap?

Or perhaps this Likeable Hero's "worthwhile goal" is uprooting the terrorists who blow things up, and the woman is either the overwhelming odds or the key to the conspiracy he's trying to unmask?

Or perhaps the Likeable Hero's "worthwhile goal" is to find a wife and settle down to raising kids (after almost being killed in war), and the woman he saves is his goal, and the terrorists who make explosions are the "seemingly overwhelming odds" (as he's just one person, and they are international organizations.)

Do you see how all these questions are folded up inside the description of a single EVENT?  That EVENT is the opening plot event of a novel.  Because that event happened, Hero did something that had consequences, then because of that consequence, She will do something, and because of the consequence of what she does, he will do something etc etc to HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

Literally millions of stories, no two alike, can be woven out of that plot.

The story is something else all together.

The story is the emotional effect those deeds and consequences have on the Characters. 

The story is all about who those characters are, the emotional impact of the Event, and the consequences of those emotions.  The story is all about the PLOT happening to the Character -- that is, impacting a Person, an individual like no other in the world. 

The plot is what the character does; the story is what happens to the character because of what the character did. 

The theme is the equation that relates the character's actions to the consequences of those actions -- the theme is this character's Life Lesson (and the title of the Work.)

The element that "integrates" plot and character is theme.

What happens and who it happens to are selected by the writer to reveal something primal about the nature of life, the universe and everything.  What is revealed is the theme.

For example, if the Hero is this fellow just returned from war looking for a wife, and terrorists strike the city, then that Event might define the THEME of this piece as something about how "Whatever you flee follows you because it originates inside you."

He can only free himself from a life of fighting terrorists by expunging that element inside him that binds him to either a life of violence (he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword) or to a life of opposing an ideology. 

Does he really want to change his life -- or does he just want to relocate his life?

Does she have to accept his life and enter it?  Or will he enter her life, leaving his behind?  Or will they create something new?

If that's the direction of your novel, you create the woman he rescues from the explosion to be maybe a daughter or grand-daughter of someone who holds the ideology the Hero has been fighting.

The plot is all about him chasing down the terrorists who dropped a building on his woman (and him, but hero types don't count themselves.)

The story that goes with that plot is all about him convincing her to change her ideology (or vice/versa).

Set this PLOT in Iran, for example, and make this Hero a guy who has just returned from fighting in Syria.  Change the hot-dog stand to ethnic food.  He rescues the comely niece of a Christian Preacher making World headlines from Jerusalem.  Did the explosion that collapsed the building on them originate with a Shin Bet operation undermining Iran?  Is she perhaps involved? 

Do you see how such a simple plot EVENT as an explosion can be pregnant with Questions of THEMATIC SUBSTANCE? 

Regardless of whether your reader knows that they live by a philosophy, they do in fact read stories in search of the underlying philosophy the Characters live by.  That is what causes the interest in "what happens next."

You do not allow yourself as a writer to TELL your theme - or reveal in explicit, on-the-nose-dialogue -  what that underlying philosophy of your characters is.

Why is that?  Because readers who don't know that they, themselves, have and live by a philosophy don't want to read about characters who DO KNOW that they live by a philosophy. 

What happens -- the Plot Events - define the entire philosophical underpinnings invisible behind the character's lives.  The Events -- what happens next -- are the plot, and the plot tells the story.

There are many possible consequences of any action, any Plot Event.

Which one actually happens is selected by the writer from the Theme because what happens (with or against the odds) eventually adds up to a sketch of the nature of reality, the structure of the universe. 

The plot reveals the theme; the story explains the theme. 

To Integrate the Plot with the Characters whose actions generate the plot, just let the Character collect enough information about "what action causes what to happen" and then arrive at a notion of the structure and function of their universe.

The Hero, who can be female, then takes a final action based on that new perception of reality.

And the final consequence gives the reader assurance that they have understood what the Character saw in their universe that caused them to choose this final action.

In the best selling books on screenwriting, Save The Cat!, Blake Snyder discusses the 3-act and 4-act structure, pointing out that recent blockbuster films are most all 3-act.

Novels, so far, have tended to be 4-act structures, even as best sellers.

Watch for this to change as the two fields blend.  To learn about 'acts' and the structure of an 'act' read up on stage writing, especially going back to the Ancient Greek plays.

So going with the 4-act structure of the typical Romance Novel, the end of Act 3 is the 3/4 point in the novel. 

3/4 is the point at which the Main Character arrives at the AHA! moment when he understands the world he lives in, the tricks his enemies have played. 

At the 3/4 point, the Who of the "who-dun-it" mystery is clear to the Detective, the "Dear God, I Love That Woman!" moment happens when the woman is about to marry someone else.

At the 3/4 point the main character understands what he/she must DO, regardless of the obvious consequences.  The action which is suddenly imperative was inconceivable prior to this understanding. 

This 3/4 point is the point at which THE WORM TURNS -- this is the cornered-rat moment, this is the wounded-elephant-rage moment.  This is where the character finally gets a grip on himself and shows what he's made of. 

The 3/4 point is where Story and Plot blend into one seamless whole.

At the 3/4 point the reader understands the theme.

To create that complex point, the writer has to have trimmed away all extraneous matter from the story and from the plot so that every story-reaction and every plot-event illustrates precisely the same theme. 

"Theme" is very nebulous until it's been defined by precision plotting.

A lot of writers don't do precision plotting with conscious intent, but finished product is the same.

At the 3/4 point, the writer may state the theme in a line of dialogue, a worded thought (in italics), or even a narrative statement, possibly even exposition where the writer speaks directly to the reader.  Dialogue is best for stating a theme, and the best character to do that is a secondary character -- not one of the two principles who are in conflict.  In film, this is your B-story character.

The thematic statement should be no more than one line, not even one whole sentence.

Sometimes, if you've done your work well by keeping every Event on the Because Line and selecting what happens next to clearly delineate the THEME, you can do this "theme-stated beat" with a single word that the reader has enough information to understand.

This verbalization of the theme should come several pages after the character clearly grasps the point he/she has been missing about how and why his world works the way it does.

Thus the writer is not informing the reader of what the theme is, but confirming the reader's suspicion -- or perhaps conviction -- of what makes this invented world tick.

The 3/4 point is the moment when the main character knows right from wrong, and understands what the right action must be.  It is a moment of value judgement, and thus often akin to a religious conversion.

One of the major tasks in rewriting is to cut, trim and adjust the entire manuscript so that this salient moment of revelation, of epiphany, comes at exactly the 3/4 (or 2/3 in a 3-act structure) point without moving the 1/2 point (highest or lowest moment of main Character's life) of its mark.  These critical story-structure points are called in screenwriting and stage writing "beats."  They have the emotional intensity of a drumbeat and structure fiction just as tempo structures music.

Placing these story-development points at the correct percentage points of the manuscript is what is technically called "pacing."  If the writer doesn't get the placement right in the submission draft, a good editor will insist that a chapter be cut here or a character be cut there.  That final edit against a deadline can be brutal and high-pressure for the writer, so it's better to do it yourself at the outline stage.

The final act, the last quarter (or third) of the novel, is configured around the main character taking an action (plot) based on his new understanding (story) of his world (theme). 

When at the end, his world reacts to his action as he understood at the 3/4 point, the reader feels that events corroborate the reader's understanding of the novel.

That moment of corroboration is the payload for every novel, every film, every story.

Corroboration provides the satisfaction, confidence, and relaxation that can only come from understanding your reality.  (Never mind if that understanding is wrong; it is yours, and that's all that matters.)

That corroboration is the resolution of the conflict that generated the plot on page 1, and it is also the resolution of the internal conflict that generated the story. 

Reading a good Ending is like putting the final piece into a jigsaw puzzle so you can see the entire work of art without any holes.  The final piece falls into place and the fictional world makes sense -- which provides the feeling that the real world makes sense. 

Ultimately, that's why we read fiction -- to discover how and why our real world, our real life experience, makes sense.

The 3/4 point beat is where the hypothesis becomes a theory, and the end is where the theory is proven to be fact.  That proof releases the tension wound into the springboard at the opening moment.

Here is the index to the series on creating Story Springboards:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/01/index-to-story-springboards-series-by.html

In that series on Springboards we discuss what exactly it is that makes a novel "interesting" -- what does a writer do to tell "an interesting story" and what "interesting" means from an editor's and reviewer's point of view.

Here is the index post listing the Art And Craft of Story and Plot Arcs
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/index-post-to-art-and-craft-of-story.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Character Integration Part 6 - The Hero vs The Bully by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Character Integration
Part 6
The Hero vs The Bully
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 Previous parts in this sequence on Theme-Character Integration:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/theme-character-integration-part-5-fame.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-character-integration-part-4.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-character-integration-part-3-why.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-character-integration-part-2-fire.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/06/theme-character-integration-part-1-what.html

Integrating THEME and CHARACTER -- making them a seamless center-pole of your story-plot integration structure is pretty easy, but you do need to focus on the energy-sources that drive people.

Note, in the political arena, how it happens when one person states their position, another will leap up and hammer them with counter-statements.  Don't listen to the vitriol itself, but rather focus on the energy driving the interaction.

That raw energy-pattern is what drives stories, what causes characters to act in ways that make trouble, whereupon the trouble made causes another character to act. 

All actions in this world are kinetic.  Think of your story as a billiards table with balls scattered about.  You are the player with the cue.  You TAP a ball, it flies across the table with enough kinetic energy to SMACK into another ball.  That ball rolls less energetically (some energy got absorbed in the smack) and hits another ball that just barely moves -- but falls into a pocket.

That's a story. 

The main character grabs some energy and a tool (the stick, your muscles) and SMACKS another character -- with an idea, a sloe-eyed glance, a stinging insult, out-right defiance of authority, or slinking behind someone's back. 

It doesn't matter so much what the ACT is, but it matters that on page 1 your main character is introduced first, and the first thing any reader learns about him/her is via their ACTION -- that the reader must interpret to suit the reader, not to suit the writer.

In other words, you create a character, and introduce that character to the reader in a SHOW DON'T TELL -- an action.

Now, first decide if your POV character is The Hero or The Bully, then create the Situation etc that will lay out your theme in visuals, in pictures, and in what seems to the reader as mere decoration. 

If your POV Character is The Hero, his first ACTION on that first page must be a SAVE THE CAT! action -- he has to "save the cat" as defined by Blake Snyder.

What does it mean to save the cat?  It's an action which puts the character at risk in some way (doesn't have to be life and limb).  Something is at stake for The Hero that will seem to the reader to be more vital -- more crucial or important -- than what is at stake for the "owner" of the cat. 

"The Hero" is a character who risks losing something of vast importance of his own in order to mitigate, offset, or eliminate (rescue), a LESSER LOSS for someone else.

How the person who is rescued then reacts (doing things,) to the Hero reveals that secondary character's worthiness to be rescued.  How each assesses what might have been lost against what might have been gained provides the SPRINGBOARD for a Romance. 
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/01/index-to-story-springboards-series-by.html

Differing 'values' are source of conflict that is the energy to power your springboard or billiards game.

So back to billiards -- "conflict" is the point where your cue's point hits the billiard ball.  That's the initial conflict defined on page 1.

Prior to that point, there is only potential energy, -- the thought, the chalking of the cue, the study of the lay of the table, the measuring of angles, the positioning, and the working of muscles in which potential energy is stored -- all of that is "backstory" --then the energy is RELEASED in that SMACK, or the springboard rebounds.

Contact between the cue and the ball is conflict illustrated.  That is the point at which the two elements that will conflict to generate the plot first meet.  And that's the definition of a story opening.  The ending is where the ball falls into the pocket (HEA) or fails to fall in (sad ending or teaser for a sequel.)

The Hero is a character who has a vast amount of potential energy, maybe isn't aware of it or doesn't care, but also has the most to lose, and doesn't dwell on The Stakes.

That's one key to success in the climb to high places noted in this blog entry:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/11/dialogue-part-5-how-to-write-liar.html

In the book cited in that entry, the point is clear that high profile (celebrities, politicians, people in the news all their lives) liars never consider what might happen if they're caught.  They never worry about what it would mean to lose.  They don't worry about The Stakes. 

So read Dialogue Part 5 to see how to construct the inner dialogue as well as the spoken dialogue.  It's not just what you put there, but what you leave out that shows rather than tells what stuff your character is made of. 

The core definition of Hero is the person who handles their own power well.

The core definition of a Bully is the person who has more power than they can handle.

A bully is a sad sack indeed, but instead of feeling sorry for such people we often cringe in fear before them.

That's not irrational.  There is nothing more dangerous than a 3 year old with a loaded gun with the safety off.  That image pretty much defines the bully.

The bully has deep, twisted, terrible emotional problems that viciate their strength of character.  When such a person is physically larger than his/her peers, has a larger reputation, more charisma (the High School clique leader), more powerful parents, employer, associates, has weaponry that out-guns others, that power will be put to the service of assuaging that person's emotional issues.

That's the way every human being is made.

It is depicted in Astrology (as explained by Noel Tyl) as the Moon, Saturn and the Sun as positioned in the natal chart.  The Moon represents the emotional core of essential NEEDS, or what you WANT (what you always feel is missing no matter how much you have).  Saturn represents your ambition.  The Sun represents your energy -- how it flows into and through you, driving your actions.

The key that Noel Tyl teaches with astrology is that a personality will organize (by maturity) to put the ambition and energy at the service of the reigning need.  Life is lived trying to fulfill that need.  Tyl also factors in the Moon's nodes and aspects to them to get a picture of the internalized stresses acquired in childhood which people work out in later life.

A Bully is someone who has more Need than Power.

A Hero is someone who has more Power than Need.

If your story is about a Hero, your theme will have to reflect that strength of character that controls, subverts, dismisses, ignores -- or whatever mechanism -- the character's reigning Need. 

If your story is about a Bully, your theme will have to reflect that weakness of character that lets the screaming pain at the center of this person dominate all actions, reactions, ambitions and goals, whether the person knows it or not.

In either case, Hero or Bully, your theme will have to deal with the Source of Power, the method of accumulating Power, the use of Power, the goals that Power is aimed at, and of course the theme determines the ending. 

If the Bully wins, you are making a thematic statement that the way to an HEA is to use Power to assuage Need.

If the Hero wins, you are making a thematic statement that the way to an HEA is to use Need (sensitivity to others) to harness Power. 

The Hero uses Power in the service of other people's needs.  The Hero doesn't feel deprived, doesn't feel he/she is Giving anything because the Hero has so much extra Power, and is tapped into the Divine Source of power which the Hero knows is not his/her own, so that whatever impossible task is presented, it is accomplished without diminishing the Hero's Power.

The Bully, on the other hand, goes around with something to prove, and a Need not just to be dominant, but to make everyone acknowledge that dominance.

The Hero does not dominate, and has no need for anyone to know he/she exists nevermind has a lot of Power.

The Bully is insatiably thirsty for more and more Power -- somehow knowing that to make the screaming Need shut up, there has to be more Power than Need. 

And that's true.  It is one way to turn a Bully into a Hero. 

Experiencing, even for a moment, enough power to shut that need up can change an individual's entire personality.  There are two ways to accomplish that reversal of proportion of Power and Need.  You can reduce the amount of Need, or you can increase the amount of Power. 

Thus a young Bully can be 'cured' by having a victim stand up and smack him down in front of his cronies.  This reduces the amount of social Power the Bully has -- and if it reduces the Power level to below the Need level, the Bully can become a level-headed functioning member of society who is ashamed of his prior behavior.  It's all a matter of the relative intensity of the potential energy tied up in Need and Power.

Also a Hero can be transformed into a Bully by reversing the proportions of Need and Power.  That's the source of the saying, "Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely." 

Any individual can have their Power/Need balance disrupted and find their character cracked and crumbling (high drama in that; tragedy and death or hard lessons learned).  The Wisdom to avoid taking on more power than the character can handle is not usually a trait of the Hero.  Wisdom is usually a trait of the archetype of The King or The Priest -- that is, the elders who made that mistake decades ago and learned from it.

Astrology does not say you are a Hero or a Bully.  The Sun, Moon, Saturn relationship does not determine that at all.  It's not what you've got that matters, but how you choose to use it.

The true Hero confronting a Bully will see himself in that Bully -- and know how to handle that particular Bully to bring the Power/Need balance to functional proportions.

As I said, there are two ways to cure a Bully -- reduce Need or increase Power.  Psychiatrists prescribe drugs to reduce Need.  Politicians prescribe more control of public funds to increase Power.

In any universe you create for your characters, if you choose to tell the story of a Bully vs. a Hero, you will have to deal with themes involving the use and abuse of Power.

Here is a discussion of Six Kind of Power in a Relationship:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/six-kinds-of-power-in-relationship.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Index To Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Posts by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Index To Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Posts
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

As readers of this Tuesday blog on writing craft have noticed, I focus on THEME as the bedrock of a writer's craft.

Most writers, especially the best ones, never think about or notice theme in their work because the underlying, cohesive and coherent theme is always supplied by the subconscious.

The Integration series of posts that discuss integrating theme into various other skills are designed to train your subconscious so that it will do this job for you, and do it without attracting your attention -- so you can just tell your story.

A lot of the posts on this Tuesday blog are devoted to, or just mention, Worldbuilding.

The single most necessary skill in worldbuilding (creating a fictional world against which to tell your story) is theme.

Even if you are working in contemporary settings, you are creating for the reader a "Hollywood-ized version" of their reality, a dedicand cut through the side of reality that reveals its internal structure.

That "angle" on reality, that cut through to reveal the inner mechanism, is the source of your theme.  It is the show-don't-tell of your theme.

And it is subtle.  One tiny detail of your worldbuilding out of place, one tiny thing that clashes with your theme, and the reader/viewer is thrown right out of the fictional world. 

That foundation of suspension of disbelief is built upon a smooth, seamless integration of theme and worldbuilding.

The critical part of what a writer does to create verisimilitude in worldbuilding is done by observing what goes on in the real world, and noticing how it all might seem to their target audience.  Studying the world from various points of view is the main exercise, and these posts walk you through the method of observing, then thinking through where these elements can go in a piece of fiction. 

Dramatic effect and emotional impact is heightened without melodrama when your writing is done with the discipline acquired from such study.

This is the series of posts illustrating what goes on inside a writer's mind when creating such an integrated set of ideas. 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-1.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integraton-part-2.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-3.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-4.html

http://www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/10/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-5.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/02/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-6.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-7.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/01/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-8.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/10/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-9.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/11/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-10.html -- Is Government Form Irrelevant?

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/04/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-11.html -- Is "Why is it wrong to blame the victim?"
I may have to update this Index post with future parts listed

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/05/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-12.html

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 13 Authority, Responsibility, and Power in Alien Romance
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/05/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-13.html

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 14 - Selling The Happily Ever After Ending
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/06/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-14.html

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 15 - What Is At Stake
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-15.html

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 16 - Scientific Evidence For The Happily Ever After
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-16.html

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 17 - Depicting Prophecy
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/11/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-17.html

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 18 - Creating A Galactic History
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/12/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-18.html

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 19 - A Stitch In Time
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/03/theme-worldbuilding-integration-stitch.html

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 20 - Why Love Matters (readers love a mystery)
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/05/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-20.html

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 21 - The Couple's First Fight (privacy as key to HEA)
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/06/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-21.html



Here is an early post on Worldbuilding and Art:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/02/worldbuilding-and-art.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 8 - Use of Statistics by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 8
Use of Statistics
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Here is Part 7 of this series on Theme-Worldbuilding Integration, titled Another Use of Media. 
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-7.html

That post has a link to Part 6 which contains links to previous parts.  Here we will build on those posts. 

Part 7 is about a Fortune Magazine article about "The One Percent" of our population (a statistics based argument).  I found that article in a magazine in a doctor's waiting room, which led to a conversation with a young woman who plays videogames. 

Statistically, women videogame players are a minority, but in the 40% range.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2013/06/12/women-50-percent-gaming-audience/2411529/

Marketers use statistics like this to shape the creation and packaging of products (like novels, for example) and to "Target an Audience" with advertising.  We've discussed targeting audiences at some length and will no doubt return to that topic:

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

Back in November 2013, a story broke in the Washington Post that caught my eye.

http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/new-york-post-claims-census-falsifies-unemployment-figures-5436

And here is a set of graphs about employment trends statistically broken down:
http://www.economicpopulist.org/comment/reply/5210

It was a report, which called into question the accuracy of statistics released by a government agency -- a statistic which large numbers of people may have used to decide whether Barak Obama had done a good enough job rescuing the economy to deserve re-election. Later push-back pointed out how these numbers are produced by being passed from hand to hand across agencies, and that the career civil service employees really do take getting accurate figures together seriously.  This would be very hard to disrupt.  So the question becomes why did the Washington Post print that story in the midst of the Obamacare website disaster and not sooner? 

Dancing a political candidate through a "campaign" is all about packaging a product and targeting the market for that product (ignoring the 1% because they don't count, majority rules so the 1% are powerless.)

Marketers call this packaging and targeting "messaging."  You have to use the right keywords to get your message to "resonate" -- e.g. to get retweeted, or repeated as fact, even if what you're saying is not fact. 

For example: "Reverse mortgages are safe and effective" is the message, but the fine print says that you will own your house only until the last owner leaves.  That means if you are 92, get thrown into a nursing home against your will for 6 months, you thereupon have no home to go back to if you should violate statistics and survive incarceration in a nursing home.  ROMANCE NOVEL: Gal's grandmother incarcerated, loses home, gets well, has no place to live unless Gal throws her live-in-Guy out.  Now what?

Political Strategists determine what "messaging" keywords to use via statistics generated from "Focus Groups."  All of this is a use of the power of Science to manipulate people using knowledge of what those people do not know -- ignorance is bliss, and blissful people don't rebel. 

Remember this post is about Theme-Worldbuilding Integration and that idea, that "blissful people don't rebel" is an example of a theme cast as worldbuilding, fully integrated. 

A government statistical release is a "package."  It is "Messaging" packaged to be believed, because who would distrust a "non-political" department of government staffed by Civil Service employees who of course have no political opinions of their own.

If you hire a publicist who hates Romance to publicize your book, would you trust their "messaging" about your book to your audience? 

That's not a rhetorical question: it is what publishers do by assigning novels to their publicity department, staffed by people hired by their Human Resources department folks whose degrees are not in Romance Writing.  Such publicists are very likely well schooled in statistics and Public Relations courses abound in their C.V.

If you haven't studied the formulae used to generate statistics such as the Labor Department or Census Department release, studied the vast array of "assumptions" taken as "fact" when generating the numbers, and exactly which direction to reason from the numbers, you may come to incorrect conclusions.

At some point, we must discuss that 1% from Part 7 of this series on Theme-Worldbuilding Integration again because that 1% statistic is at the heart of this culture's entire sense of "right vs. wrong" and who can and should do what to fix it.  That is a massive theme and a huge conflict we can use to great advantage in galactic Romance, and it is salient to the development of Paranormal Romance novels because the concept of "Right vs. Wrong" bespeaks the mystical view of the universe.

For example, speaking of that 1%, I have just read a wondrous Romance novel, Girl of My Dreams by Morgan Mandel:



Girl of My Dreams is about a TV show where 25 women vie for the favor of a male Billionaire.  It's a contest and the prize is potential marriage to a Billionaire (1%-er)who happens to be quite a hunk, too.  This is a novel worth studying in conjunction with Part 7 of this series on Theme-Worldbuilding Integration. 

So back to the boring concept of Statistics and what a Romance writer can do with it.

People use statistics as an accurate picture of the entire world around them because statistics produce accurate predictions -- such as the outcome of an election via exit polls --  and if their own experience is at variance with the picture, they assume "It's just me."

For example, if the candidate you voted for doesn't win, you assume "everybody" voted for the other candidate.  Statistics don't lie.  You are the 1% on that issue.  You are the oddball.  You don't count. 

That is a CONFLICT, an Internal Conflict,  -- the exact type of CONFLICT that is at the heart of every story, and especially at the heart of a good Romance because it's all about self-perception vs. your perception of others and what that conflict implies about whether you should change yourself -- or change others. 

That conflict is HUMAN vs. NATURE -- where in this instance what passes for "Nature" isn't grass and trees, storms and earthquakes, but "society."  "NATURE" is the general environment that we never notice - the air we breathe, water we drink, people creating the traffic jam we have to penetrate to get to work on time.

Road engineering is done not just from physics (to calculate degree of embankment on curves) but commuter volume statistics which is as political as employment statistics.

There's a Hollywood adage that explains why low-budget pictures don't get made. 

"You can't steal a million dollars from a million dollar movie budget." 

It's a principle you can use to understand the political component of building commuter roads based on employment statistics and "expectations."  We set, using statistics, a certain percentage of every large-budget project to shrug off as a loss due to "waste, fraud and abuse."  There's a percentage of "we can't account for it" and "miscelaneous" in every budget.  The larger the budget, the larger the absolute value of that number.

That principle is one way writers can implant a statistical theme into their Worldbuilding.

If your Lead Male is an engineer building a road or a website, his job depends on the size of the budget of that project, and his management of that budget to disallow "waste, fraud and abuse" in excess of a certain percentage -- a percentage set by political considerations, but excused by statistics.

If your theme is "Honesty is the Best Policy" then your Lead Female becomes the woman who is, maybe the Auditor for that project or for some agency -- or maybe for a political candidate's campaign looking for dirt on the incumbents who launched your Lead Male's project.

Do you see now why STATISTICS is a matter of Ultimate Concern to Romance Writers?

If your Lead Male accepts that his bosses "know" the correct percentage to allow for "waste, fraud and abuse" (and maybe wants his own cut of that percentage), and your Female Lead is convinced the correct percentage for "waste, fraud and abuse" is zero, you have a Hot Conflict. 

Which one will prove their idea is correct?  What would the other take as proof their own idea is wrong?  Is it Evil to compromise on a Principle?  Is this percentage a Principle -- or a political whitewash?  Ultimately, what do you let the hottest lover you have ever had in your life get away with, just to keep them in your bed?   

Our perception of our environment is shaped by whatever information flows through our conscious and subconscious awareness (today: the internet news stream does a lot of the shaping.)

I've noted in this blog on writing craft that a savvy writer has to monitor headlines for the context in which their readers actually live, and use what the reader already "knows" whether it's true or not, but craft the ART behind the story that's being written in such a way as to reveal something new. 

If the artist thinks the audience believes incorrectly, and writes a story only to correct the audience's misconceptions - the work will fail as a story. 

If the artist understands what the audience believes, and understands many other points of view from the inside, then the artist can depict the contrast between these various beliefs as CONFLICT. 

When each character speaks sincerely and convincingly from a unique point of view, the conflict among the characters leaves the audience with a question.  The audience members are each free to decide what the answer is, or ought to be.

That clear, convincing presentation of opposite sides of an argument (say about the project management's ability to eliminate "waste, fraud and abuse" entirely) will make the novel or story "resonate" -- i.e. get tweeted and retweeted about. 

The audience won't come out of reading the story with the same opinion as the writer, but they will memorize that writer's byline or subscribe to their releases on Amazon.

See last week's post, Reviews Part 4, for more on following a byline:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/01/reviews-4-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

Capturing of a reader's attention to the point where the reader memorizes and follows a byline is what the Artist does art for.

Art is done by rearranging the bits and pieces a reader already takes for granted, or does not realize that they know in order to show the reader a new picture that is interesting.

Here is a post in the series on what makes a story "interesting."

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-4-art-of.html

There is a rampant assumption loose in the world today that can be used to magnificent advantage by a fiction-artist.

That assumption, which is taught by and supported by the National Curriculum called "Common Core" (a product of the Bill Gates Foundation and Microsoft who definitely do know better), is that statistics can and should be applied BACKWARDS.

What does that mean?  Statistics is a mathematical gadget that manipulates numbers derived from observing specific attributes distributed across a "population."

The "population" sliced and diced by statisticians may or may not share other characteristics.

Statistics have proven such accurate predictors of the behavior of large populations of otherwise dissimilar individuals (people, yes, but this would apply to non-humans as well) that people use those numbers to create their opinions.

And a growing number of young adults are using statistics reports "backwards."

Using statistics forwards means collecting data on individuals and predicting how large numbers of individuals will move together in the same direction.

For example: how many iPads will Apple sell in the next six months?  How many people will upgrade from a Samsung to an iPad (and think it's an UPgrade?).

Those are questions statistics can answer accurately.

Will you upgrade from a Samsung or Kindle to an iPad and think it an UPgrade?

Statistics can't answer that.  It would be using statistics "backwards" to predict your behavior based on the behavior of a majority, or even a significant minority of people "just like you."

But your friend you go to lunch with at work might use released statistics to make a confident assumption about your future behavior.  That lunch conversation can become the core of a novel's conflict by Integrating that THEME (working statistics backwards) into the WORLDBUILDING (contemporary Romance).

For example, the lunch-friend is a Guy your Gal really wants to go out with on a real Date.  He makes this swaggering, sweeping prediction about her trashing her Kindle for an iPad.  She scoffs.  She wants him.  She buys an iPad and flashes it around the office.  He approves and crows his triumphant I TOLD YOU SO.  She pretends he's right.  He invites her out.  At work the next day, he overhears her scorning her iPad to a girlfriend, but praising him as a fabulous Date.

That's a THEME-Worldbuilding integrated CONFLICT. 

It is also a Story Springboard, not the whole story.  It's up to you to finish the story. 

Here is Part 6 of Story Springboards with links to previous parts:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/story-springboards-part-6-earning.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Story Springboards Part 3 - Art of Episodic Plotting by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Story Springboards Part 3
Art of Episodic Plotting
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Here is the index of previous posts relevant to this discussion:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/index-post-to-art-and-craft-of-story.html

This post series on Story Springboards explores the essence of what "interesting" means from the point of view of a writer and how to use that knowledge to sell fiction, especially Science Fiction, and double especially Science Fiction Romance. 

All the books on how to write stories tell you (without showing) that to sell fiction, all you have to do is write an "interesting" story. 

No instruction is more frustrating than that simple sentence "just write an interesting story."  So let's delve a little deeper than writing teachers usually do. 

"What is interesting and how do you write it?"

And what has that to do with the Art of Episodic Plotting? 

Note the first post in this series is from a selling writer who is intrigued by "art heists" -- and introduces the elements about art theft which is intriguing to her.  
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/01/story-springboards-part-1-art-heists-by.html

This multi-part discussion of springboards is intricately related to the underlying structure of short stories, novels and screenplays -- serials, sequels, episodes, braided plots, converging plots, parallel plots, all sorts of technically different but very marketable structures. 

"Interesting" is a property of those structures much more than it is of a particular subject, but remember that THEME is the foundation of story structure, which is why we've been examining how to "integrate" theme into each of the other elements of structure.

For each type of structure, a different type of SPRINGBOARD is necessary.

The springboard (wound up potential energy that is about to hurl the reader into a ballistic arc with an "ending" of belly-flopping or slicing into the pool) is energized by the quality "interesting"  but "aimed" at a target which is identified as "genre."  The strength and flexibility of the springboard you construct depends on how well "integrated" theme is with the rest of the components of the story structure. 

That is, you can sell any structure in any genre, mix and match, if you construct your springboard just right. 

The springboard is the main subject discussed in your logline, pitch, or query letter, but it is never mentioned by name.  The springboard has to be shown, not told.

This is why the "logline" or pitch for a story, and the "query letter" and synopsis or summary or treatment, is such a useful tool to the editor who has to choose whether to invest the company's money in this project.

The "springboard" reveals which audience demographic will be "interested" by this story.

Showing not telling your springboard is also why it is so hard for a writer to create the selling pitch or query letter -- the inclination is to TELL the editor, not show.  But the editor is looking for a master of show-don't-tell. 

The logline, query letter, etc reveal to the editor whether you, the writer, know what you're doing -- or not. 

If an editor backs a writer who does not know what he/she is doing, the editor tends to get fired.  The alternative for the editor is to try to teach that writer the "ropes."  Time spent on teaching one writer is time that can't be spent perfecting other manuscripts.  So an editor who is "developing" one writer has to buy other products that are perfected already. 

So there is a small market for beginning writers who haven't mastered "springboards," and a large market for writers who have. 

Story Springboards Part 2 is found here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/04/story-springboards-part-2-tv-shows.html

So now let's put "interesting" under the microscope. 

A while ago, the following "interesting" tweet appeared in my twitterfeed. 
--------------
Tweet from http://twitter.com/MadMachX    
The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts.

--Timothy Dwight
----------------

This philosophy (yes it is a philosophy and therefore makes a terrific novel theme) is based on a "misnomer" that everyone believes from earliest childhood -- the labeling of an object (or in this case a thought) with an attribute which does not originate within that object. 

Here's the URL to the post where the power of the "misnomer" is discussed in depth.  It reveals an essential component of the process of grabbing the "interest" of a target audience, the use of language. 
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/02/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-6.html

Cross-correlate that post on misnomers with the post on TALENT

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/talent-mystique-or-mistake.html

The misnomer twist in that tweet above is the attribution of the property "interesting" to the object in which the person is interested. 

The philosophy behind that attribution is very similar to the thinking behind the misnomer "Fast Food."  (the healthiness of the food is attributed to the method of delivery -- misdirecting the problem-solving attention away from the real problem.)

Remember a problem is a manifestation of a CONFLICT - and conflict is the essence of story as well as plot.

In constructing the foundation for a long series of novels, a TV Series, a movie-serial, or an episodic videogame, you have to load the problem(s) with enough potential energy to "spring" all the way to the ending of the Series. 

Understanding climaxes (both within a story, at the end of a scene or chapter, and at the end of a story, and how the series of climaxes must relate to each other) requires an understanding of the initial state -- the springboard before it has sprung, and where the weaknesses are in the springboard that might cause it to break or mis-fire. 

I don't think there are any books on writing craft that reveal the internal mechanism of the writer's mind that must function (consciously for some, unconsciously for most) to produce a "springboard" with enough energy wound up in it to reach "the end" of a long arc (series of novels, or a TV Series) and still have enough punch to blow off energy in the biggest climax of the series.

In a TV Series, there is usually a team of writers brainstorming the final climax, which is often why a series will "peter out" or fall off track as writers come and go from the team.

Most writers who do formulate a powerful springboard, do it by accident, but there is a method to it that can be learned, even by those born without any writing Talent.

One thing "writers" come by naturally, that is a sure sign a child has the capacity to make a living at writing, is a curiosity about words for their own sake, an interest in words beyond the mere meaning.

Such a curiosity includes words in many languages, both cognate with the native language of the child and non-cognate languages -- AND "made up" languages like Klingon or Elvish.

So the child learns early that you can't translate anything from one language to another, not really.  You can approximate and create the illusion of understanding, but not the understanding itself.  That's why most all children create their own words for the feelings and concepts developing in their minds -- convinced no human has ever before needed such a word.

You can't really translate from that internal apprehension of a "meaning" to an external, mutually agreed upon meaning. 

VENN DIAGRAM

Look at all the circles as representing the same concept in different languages. 

And consider that children and adolescents don't "speak the same language" as adults, or grandparents.  Language reflects the "generation gap."  A "living language" evolves.

A concept symbolized by a word has connotations and denotations. 

Denotations are easy to translate most of the time, but the native speaker hears a word and hears echos of all the connotations that go with the denotation and all the depth and texture of semantic loading, of emotional associations, and colorations imposed by their own generation -- and by prior generations. 

For example, when you hear the word Chocolate, do you FEEL 'bitter' or 'sweet?'  Chocolate itself is very bitter.  But we think sweet because we are accustomed to sugar that's lightly flavored with chocolate.

Note how an English word may overlap a small arc of Mandarin and another Arc of Hebrew -- but coincide reasonably well with both only in that tiny section in the middle.  And even there, there are discernible differences (symbolized by the colors). 

You might say an English word with most of your meaning at the top of the orange circle, and the translator could only find Mandarin or Hebrew words at the bottom of the English set of associated concepts where the circles overlap.

But when the translator says that word in Mandarin, the listener would "hear" all the connotations and associations and allusions contained in that word's Mandarin circle, barely noting the area of definition where there is an overlap, and never knowing of the existence of the associations you actually meant.

I've had novels "translated" -- they are unintelligible in the translated form.   

The same overlapping circles effect is true even within a given language.  That's why children invent their own words and define their own circles.

No two people know or use any given word in exactly the same way because we each have different accumulated connotations that we attach to words as we learn them, and emotional associations that are evoked because of subsequent experiences. 

Children learn this difference in usage early in life -- for example, the 4 year old's definition of NOW is very different from their 40 year old mother's definition of NOW.  "I want my blankey," does not mean "I want my nice clean blanket after it's been through the wash." 

So consider the three circles as three people - mother, father, child - earnestly discussing when they will arrive at the child's friend's birthday party. "Now" does not mean "now." 

If such variance exists among speakers of the same language, consider how different languages express views of the world that are inherently different and literally untranslatable. 

No two languages divide the world into the same circles of definition.

The word, "interesting," is subject to this very interesting effect.

A similar effect happens between two people using the same language, and it is a larger effect when two people are using different dialects of the same language.  (Is that piece of furniture a davenport, a sofa, or a couch?  A writer has to know what their reader will envision.) 

Those who know only one language and culture learned before the age of 7 (the age at which language brain centers start to become set), can't grasp how the very words we use shape our perceptions of reality and limit our imagination.  Things that are commonplace to some people are unthinkable to others -- simply because of language.

We think in words.  That's why children make up words to talk to their friends of the same age. 

The classic examples from Linguistics include Navaho, and other Native American languages that depict TIME not as a linear arrow, but as something else.

One of the complaints against Native Americans in the 1870's was that they were "lazy."  Or untruthful.  The Native American would agree to work a job, and then not show up "on time."  The person who hired the Native American would fire him for being late, and the Native would be offended because he wasn't late -- even if he was three days late. 

No amount of translating could work through this conceptual problem.  The solution then employed was to conscript Native children into American schools and inculcate the linguistic domains of definition (and ethics, morals and religion that go with them) into the child at an early enough age that the child would grow up to be employable (which was deemed the key to happiness). 

OK, none of the real history was that simple.  But a lot of it hinges on words providing limits to what we can conceptualize.  There are many such examples in cultures around the world. 

If this kind of gap is possible among humans, just imagine what we may run into on some of those planets now being discovered "out there.' 

Hebrew, likewise, handles the verb TO BE in ways entirely different from English.

When concepts of TIME and EXISTENCE are configured differently, everything in the culture that uses those concepts becomes configured differently.  The differences cause the most trouble when the participants yelling across the cultural gap are unaware there is a gap.

This kind of miscommunication is the ESSENCE OF CONFLICT. 

Resolution of conflict is one essential ingredient in climaxes. 

Anticipating a climax is the essence of "Interesting." 

Next week we'll look at "boring" for clues about how to write "interesting" stories. 

January 21, 2014 Story Springboards Part 7 takes a closer look at boring/interesting with skills&drills. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Index to Theme-Plot Integration

Every once in a while I give you a chance to catch up by posting a list of previous posts in related series -- sometimes with parts that are scattered about under different topics.


You may be able to find almost all my posts on this blog by searching for the keyword Tuesday.  I post here on Tuesdays, and try to remember to label each post with Tuesday. 

So here is an index post with links to some of the individual concepts behind Theme and Plot, how to identify them, how to find commercial ones (ones you can base sell-able novels on), and how to create such a well integrated novel of your own.  There are a lot of links in this post :

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


And here are the parts of this series on integrating THEME and PLOT:


Never Let A Good Emergency Go To Waste
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html

Fallacy as Theme
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-2-fallacy.html

Fallacy as Analysis
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-3-fallacy.html

Fallacies and Endorphins
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-4-fallacies.html

The Great Steam Punk Example
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-5-great.html

The Fallacy of Safety
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-6-fallacy.html

The Fallacy of Trust
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/03/theme-plot-integration-part-7-fallacy.html

The Use of Co-incidence
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-8-use-of-co.html

The Use of Co-incidence in Plot
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-9-use-of-co.html

The Use of Co-incidence in Plot continued
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-10-use-of.html

The Use of Cliche in Plot
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-plot-integration-part-11-correct.html

Tom Clancy Action-Romance Formula
 http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-plot-integration-part-12-tom.html

Superman Man of Steel Action-Romance
 http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/theme-plot-integration-part-13-superman.html

Ruling a Community
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/10/theme-plot-integration-part-14-ruling.html

Protecting a Community
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/theme-plot-integration-part-15.html

Affairs of State
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/04/theme-plot-integration-part-16-affairs.html

Theme-Plot Integration Part 17 - Crafting An Ending
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/06/theme-plot-integration-part-17-crafting.html

Part 18 Stating Your Theme
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/07/theme-plot-integration-part-18-stating.html


Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Plot Integration - Part 7 - The Fallacy of Trust

First of all, Happy Passover, Easter, whatever!  It's SPRING!!!  This is the time all young men turn their fancy to love, right?  So let's talk about the mood of the season. 

LINKS TO PREVIOUS PARTS:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-2-fallacy.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-3-fallacy.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-4-fallacies.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-5-great.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-6-fallacy.html

All Romance situations revolve around TRUST because when swept off your feet by the discovery of true love, "romanced" into daring to love, the backlash of that dive off the cliff is DISTRUST.

The sweeping, sinking, falling-in-love feeling is a loss of "control" -- of yourself, your emotions, your life, your ability to make choices.

It seems in that moment that a major life-direction choice has been made for you, and there's nothing you can do about it -- THIS IS MY MAN (or WOMAN).  This one is MINE. 

But what if you can't, don't, won't, TRUST that person, or that decision, or even yourself to deliver to that treasured person what that person deserves because that person is a treasure to all humanity?

Discovering the true value of a PERSON -- another person other than yourself -- is one of those moments when Divine Force opens your inner eye and shows you the stakes you are playing for in this world. 

And that is an awesome experience.

The stakes of "falling in love" -- of recognizing a Soul Mate -- have nothing at all to do with yourself in that moment of recognition of the stakes.  The stakes you play the love-game FOR are the children -- and their children and their children, long after you're gone.  The stakes of love are eternal.

And if you make a mistake, you are responsible for the Souls yet to enter the world for their turn.

Oh, boy! 

That is why all "Falling In Love" is about FEAR -- and why Romance itself is a genre of exemplary courage on display.  It takes far more courage to LOVE than it does to murder someone or commit suicide.

In fact, it takes more courage to hug than to shoot a gun into a crowd or an army. 

That's why all Romance is about fear, the bigger internal fears we bury when we think we leave childhood behind. 

Puberty is a time of eruption of sexual adult hormones, a transition to what we call adulthood.

But sex alone doesn't create adults out of children.  In fact, it can stunt the development of the child into an adult.

When that happens, and later the pseudo-adult who encountered sex too early in life, at too immature an age of character, then the encounter with the Soul Mate and the "falling in love" experience of true Romance is fraught with eruptions of sheer terror, fear like nothing ever felt before - fear of failure as a person, fear of having children. 

If you can't trust yourself, you can't trust anyone else -- ever!

This is the stuff of true drama and and it is the core of the reason that ROMANCE -- as a genre -- deserves much more respect than it has ever (yet) garnered in the public square.

OK, then if TRUST is your core theme for your new novel -- what's the plot?  Where do you find a plot that has all the opportunities to explore the issues of TRUST buried in all current young adults?

And I really think that "all" current young adults (anyone under say maybe 30) are in this category of having been introduced to the adult world of sexuality too soon in their character-arc.  You can connect with this audience directly if you can understand all sides of this issue, and why these fears and trusts have to be revisited in the encounter with a Soul Mate.

Oh, yes, it's very possible that these fear/trust issues have been laid to rest in a prior incarnation and so, the pre-teen child is actually beyond them in this life, ready for adulthood at a very tender age.

And that individual makes a great character for a Romance novel - simply because they're "different" and have to wrestle with the fact that lot of their contemporaries (most likely the one they've fallen in love with) have not surmounted these issues. 

OK, so given a theme of TRUST -- what's the plot? 

If you can nail a theme and a plot before you even begin to think about characters who will live through that plot, you will very likely be able to produce saleable fiction on second draft.  The knack of writing fast, lean, easy-to-read stories is all about getting the structure right before you start drafting.

With that structure laid out, you can find characters who will advocate each side of the thematic issue you're tackling. 

You find the SIDES that you must illustrate with the backgrounds and current issues of your characters by reading non-fiction about the thematic substance you're working with.

One of the best, clearest argued, sources I've found for these kinds of "all sides of the issue presented without bias" is actually a religious source. 

In the case of FEAR/TRUST the issue roiling through America today is GUN CONTROL.

And here is a very cleanly structured, all sides of the problem laid out clearly with references, article on the position of Judaism on gun control. 

http://www.chabadofscottsdale.org/library/article_cdo/aid/507002/jewish/What-Does-Judaism-Say-About-Gun-Control.htm

Read that article -- you don't have to know anything about Judaism to see instantly that this is Romance Novel fodder. 

When you get to the end of the article, see if you have found my question nagging your mind.

It isn't what the article says that's important.  It's what it does not say, or ask, or question, or approach.  Look for the fallacy.  By now, you've trained yourself to find those fallacies everywhere, especially in news stories -- but look for it underneath this article.  Here it's harder to spot. 

Remember, this series of blog posts is about Theme-Plot INTEGRATION (i.e. doing both at once, putting your theme into your plot so you never ever have to articulate the dry, boring, repellant philosophy in a self-indulgent expository lump).  In fact your characters should not know diddly about philosophy, or care.  And your characters should never know the reader is there listening.  So they don't explain their philosophy to the reader in expository lumps disguised as dialogue. 

Philosophy creates emotions -- show don't tell the character's emotions and you have your theme and plot integrated cleanly and you have made your story a joy to read.

That is the secret I learned from the greatest writers who mentored me.

PHILOSOPHY IS THE SUBCONSCIOUS SOURCE OF EMOTION. 

What you subconsciously believe causes you to feel.  What you consciously believe leaves you cold.

Fiction writing is all about your reader's subconscious beliefs.  Not the conscious ones.

And it is within the subconscious of your reader that you will find the neatest, and most powerful, fallacies you can use to generate plot.

Search that article for the FALLACIES you can use to discuss the hot-button issues of TRUST in love, war and marriage.

The author of this piece (and it may have had a number of authors other than the ones cited) harbored a fallacy shared with the intended audience.

Spot that fallacy and you've got a Romance Genre series -- or a blockbuster film rivaling the blockbuster novels/film series by Robert Ludlum THE BOURNE IDENTITY etc. 

Here's the fallacy I see in that article that just drips Romance Genre Plot. 

"What if the government is the one with "Evil Intent"?"  What if it's the government you can't trust? 

OK, a lot of people are running around the world today ranting and chanting about not trusting government. 

If you've read the book I've been discussing in this Theme-Plot series, You Can't Lie To Me, you know why we elect folks who are honest just like we are, and then those same folks turn dishonest without our noticing the transition.  When we notice it, we rant and chant about how untrustworthy they are. 

Has anyone noticed that those in charge of the USA's government today (and even of the UN) are the very ones who ran around ranting and chanting in the 1960's that they didn't trust the government? 

Is what you rant and chant against what you fear -- or what you love and then become? 

Is loving what you fear a sign of sanity?  Is becoming what you fear inevitable? 

The question that is not asked in the article is "What if...?" (an SF keyword question) "What if the government -- i.e. the majority -- is the source of Evil Intent?"  As I said, that is the one question the intended readership for this article would never, ever, consider asking. 

That's the kind of fallacy you can use to generate plot because it is so widespread. 

As this Theme-Plot Integration series has pointed out, the writer who can depict the reader's subconscious philosophy's contradictory beliefs commands the reader's attention.  If that subconscious belief is held by a large number of people and is fallacious, that writer gains a Robert Ludlum size audience.

Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Plot Integration Part 3: Fallacy Analysis

This is Part 3 of Theme-Plot Integration, and here we'll look at some glaring fallacies in our world.

Previous Parts are here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html

http://www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-2-fallacy.html


I'm collecting stuff here for future reference on the aftermath of Election 2012 - and what all that has to do with THEME-PLOT Integration.  In this part of the series on Theme-Plot Integration we're using the classic "fallacy" as the focus of the exercise. 

Here are websites that may still be available with statistics on the Election.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2012-election-results/#

http://nation.foxnews.com/2012-presidential-election/2012/11/07/fox-exit-poll-summary-2012-presidential-election

I just happened to click on a fox link and found these by accident -- nice technology, but CNN is probably better. 

Here's a DICK MORRIS newsletter:

http://www.dickmorris.com/why-i-was-wrong/

Read what he thinks led him astray in predicting the outcome of Election 2012 which differs so markedly from what he predicted. 

Morris highlights is important stuff about how fallacies work in drama illustrated in a real-world context.  Here he's digested a lot of information into a "briefing" that is perfectly constructed for busy writers to study.  And it tells you something very important about your target audience, the people you have to entertain to get them to buy your next book. 

The gist of it is the same comment I saw on CNN from their somewhat new commentator Van Jones.  Here's a clip with Van Jones reacting to CNN's re-election call.

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/07/gergen-election-outcome-shows-desire-for-moderation/

Here's an article about who Van Jones is and how he got to be a CNN commentator.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/09/06/van_jones_resigns.html

The United Stages Demographics Have Changed.  

I'll bet you already knew that.  Thing is, do you know from what the demographics changed and into what they changed -- but maybe most importantly, why? 

"Why?" is important because in the worlds you build around this theme of "fallacies" need that aura of verisimilitude to draw your readers into your reality.  Your world must be in flux, and that flux must be driven by a reason.  Why does your built world have to be in flux?  Because your audience's world is in flux, and any world not in flux will not seem "real" to that audience.

This theme-plot integration series of blog posts is pointing out how to use popular fallacies in weaving Theme-Plot Integration -- this is subtle philosophical stuff.  But it's not difficult to master. 
See how I have plucked out just one tiny bit from all this election data and found an element to include in your worldbuilding that will improve your sales?  In this case, demographics in flux changes the politics.

Now, "world in demographic flux" also has to be woven into theme, and then plot. 

Consider that one demographic segment that might flow like a tidal wave over an established, static world upsetting the whole balance of power in your fictional world could be -- oh, say Religion, as a wave of conversions sweeps through.  Or a plague might upset the male/female balance.  Or an invasion of aliens (think of the TV show ALIEN NATION -- but increase the number of refugees to say 3/4 of the indigenous population.)  Each cause for a change in the demographics of your built world points to a different set of themes.  Within each theme, you can find a pivotal fallacy to generate your plot. 

Remember fallacies are fallacies because they reside deep in the subconscious, behind the assumptions that make life livable.  And that is where your Hero's main Adversary comes from, that's the origin from which the Villain is projected.  Psychology has uncovered how this works.  Each of us is a Captain Ahab bound to our Whale.  The whale isn't Ahab's problem.  The binding is the problem.  Those bindings are made up out of the fallacies we harbor. 

Identify and articulate the fallacy in your Main Character's subconscious, and you have determined not only who/what the Adversary is, but also what the Conflict Resolution is.  That Resolution defines what the Conflict is.  Follow the conflict back to its origin, and you'll discover where exactly your story begins -- and be able to craft a narrative hook that will grab a very large audience.

Again and again, I need to emphasize that I'm not telling you what to think about which fallacy, but showing you HOW TO THINK LIKE A WRITER (which is very, very different from how a reader thinks).  This is about how to look at current events, find the widely-held fallacy, identify it inside yourself (if it's not inside you, it won't produce a great novel), and create the "argument" that dispels the fallacy.  That "argument" is your plot. 

The argument goes like this:
a) Hero believes Fallacy because (X)
b) Villain or Adversary believes differently and attacks X
c) Hero defends X (Ahab scrambling to stock his ship and get that damn fish -- or Columbus begging money from royalty to outfit ships to sail off the edge of the world)
d) Villain wins - disproving X (that's the middle, the low-point for Hero)
e) Hero realizes he's believed a fallacy - what he knows to be true is in fact not true (grand angst moment)
f) Villain takes advantage of angst-moment to attack
g) Hero gathers himself and creates a NEW BELIEF (which might be partially fallacious if you need a sequel) and attacks Villain
h) Villain gets away
i) Hero pursues and triumphs having freed himself of the bond to the villain by eliminating the cherished fallacy

If it's a Romance, Hero and Villain might be the couple -- or the Villain might be vanquished by the Hero and Heroine getting together ( as in the Prince who elopes with the milkmaid redefining the King's view of reality.)

Whatever the genre, the argument over the validity of the fallacy is in the plot, and never (ever) articulated in actual words, not exposition or dialogue.  The argument is articulated only in action, in change of situation.  Plot is not about "what happens" -- but about what the characters do.  What happens is the result of what the characters do.  The plot is what the characters do, and the story is all about how the results of those actions change the fallacy they hold most dear.

All my traditionally published novels are formulated on such "fallacies" that become entrenched in popular thinking, different fallacies for different times, and the shifting demographic served by the particular publishing company I was working for. 

Oddly, the Sime~Gen Series is based on a fallacy that hasn't yet gone out of fashion.  For the Sime~Gen videogame, though, we are adding another fallacy and setting it in the space age. 

Fallacies you find in general media always work very well for generating popular fiction.

I saw a factoid flick by me (while watching data feeds on my cell and flipping channels on the TV, so I don't know where this came from) -- that last minute deciders cast ballots on the basis of the TV commercials they had seen, believing those political ads, just the way Bernays predicted people would behave (way before such tech as TV ads existed).

Here's a quote from Part 1 of this series leading you to study this fellow:

--------QUOTE FROM PART 1----------
Here's a link to Wikipedia (incomplete article in need of fact-checking)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

-------------QUOTE--------------------------------
Edward Louis Bernays (November 22, 1891 – March 9, 1995) was an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations".[1] He combined the ideas of Gustave Le Bon and Wilfred Trotter on crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud.

He felt this manipulation was necessary in society, which he regarded as irrational and dangerous as a result of the 'herd instinct' that Trotter had described.[2] Adam Curtis's award-winning 2002 documentary for the BBC, The Century of the Self, pinpoints Bernays as the originator of modern public relations, and Bernays was named one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century by Life magazine.[3
---------------END QUOTE------------

Thus "Public Relations" is a field that grows out of one genius's deep rooted fear of the behavior of his fellow humans, and a terrible need to "control" that powerful and evil force called "humanity."

---------END QUOTE FROM PART 1 ----------

PUBLIC RELATIONS wielded by the invisible hand of power behind the throne could make a NIFTY reason for the CHANGE IN DEMOGRAPHICS in your built world.  It could also work as the source of the fallacy that binds the Hero to the Villain just as Bernays' purported belief that society was irrational and dangerous because of the "herd instinct" and therefore more evolved people must command the direction of the herd -- members of which can't be allowed to make individual decisions about the course of their own lives. 

One good fallacy to base fiction on might be a belief that Bernays was mentally ill, that society isn't irrational and dangerous and there is no herd instinct among humans.  But Bernays created the herds of humans and drove them insane.  That situation would make a nifty alien planet for your invading refugees to come from - landing on Earth to find the same nightmare situation in play, and changing the demographic by simply being here.

Finding, articulating, and challenging such fallacies is the main source of ALL science fiction. 

Here's a post from Facebook by David Gerrold, a master of this plotting technique.  Read what he wrote about our current shifting demographic and how that affects fiction audiences and see why you must explore the worlds he's created.  Remember, he broke into screenwriting at an early age with his first sale TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES, an iconic Star Trek Episode, but went on to write some of the best, and most widely read novels in Science Fiction. 

----------POST ON FACEBOOK BY DAVID GERROLD ---

http://www.amazon.com/David-Gerrold/e/B000AQ1PQM/ is his author page on Amazon.  READ ALL HIS BOOKS!

-----------QUOTE FROM DAVID GERROLD----------
I haven't been reading a lot of science fiction lately, and I've skipped a lot of movies too. And it finally hit me after seeing Cloud Atlas what was bothering me.

I grew up in an age when science fiction movies were about vision and courage. Things To Come was about humanity triumphing over ignorance and leaping into space. Destination Moon and Conquest of Space were vivid predictions of what was possible. Forbidden Planet took us to far stars and 2001 was one of the great inspirational landmarks of the twentieth century. Star Trek, the original series, was about a future of exploration and partnership. All of these taken together said that human beings would survive our darker impulses, would learn how to live together in harmony, would assume the responsibilities of true sentience. And it's no coincidence that those stories helped motivate one of our grandest adventures -- the Apollo program that took us to the moon.

Today, too many books and movies and TV shows are about the failures of humanity. We see big impersonal cities or dystopic soul-crushing cities. We see failure and futility and hopelessness. We do not see people laughing, building, exploring, seeking, discovering, or rising to new heights -- no, we see them struggling for survival, squabbling with each other-- not uniting in common cause, not surviving as communities, but devolving into deranged and panic-stricken animals.

I know from personal experience that view of human nature is wrong. I've been at the center of a disaster and I watched as strangers came together to help each other, as neighbors gathered to make sure that everyone was safe and cared for.

I think that since the sixties, science fiction authors have become more and more overwhelmed by the future -- there's too much knowledge, too much research, too much technology for any one single human being to keep up. The "singularity" is crushing down on us even before it arrives. So it's easier to write about the collapse of civilization than to imagine a future where civilization has leapt to a new level.

But the history of our species is an astonishing chronicle of invention, innovation, and stubborn mean cussedness over the obstinacy of the physical universe. There is still so much we can be looking at, imagining, predicting, postulating, extrapolating, and describing so vividly that the reader will be certain we're time-travelers from the future. We have a whole solar system to explore. Getting into orbit, getting to the moon and Mars and the asteroids and the moons of the gas giants, all of those locales are opportunities for amazing tales of unknown possibilities.

This is my point. Everything in the world starts as a conversation. Everything. The conversation can be "I hate it when..." or "why can't we..." or "I wish it were possible to..." or "what if..." or even "that's odd..." -- but those conversations are the beginning of possibilities. Science fiction is about possibilities. It's the consideration of those possibilities that creates probability. And after probability, the next step is inevitability.

Science fiction is about the choices ahead of us. Every moment of every day, life is about choices -- not just the choice of the moment, but the results of that choice. Science fiction is about the results and the opportunity to make choices that will take us there. Science fiction is the conversation that illuminates the unknown landscapes of tomorrow.

That's the science fiction I want to read, that's the science fiction I want to see in the movies. Because science fiction is an opportunity to rekindle the enthusiasm for science as a world-changing adventure.
---------------END QUOTE---------

David -- being the genius I've always known he is -- nailed the core of the fallacy producing this crazy quilt of "results" -- elections with margins too narrow to reflect an actual, considered consensus.

The reason for this -- well, it's for fiction writers to speculate and write about, to turn the problem every which way and imagine different courses out of it, to find academic theories that account for it, to put American's peculiar constitution (peculiar in the sense of not being duplicated anywhere else in the world) into world-context, and human history.

Go out into the galaxy, find some aliens you invent, and explore what traits of human aggregate behavior are the source of this situation. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com