Targeting a Readership Part 11 Futurology And Romance by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Targeting a Readership Part 11 

Futurology And Romance

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

Previous Parts in this Targeting a Readership series on writing craft are listed here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/index-to-targeting-readership-series-by.html

Today is Rosh Hashanah the New Year 5776, so I'm writing this in advance to be auto-posted by Blogger.  The general writing craft topic today is Futurology which is an element of Science Fiction, and of Romance which is a literary genre of eternal merit.

We are right in the middle of the month when the 5 Volume work on the Tarot based on 20 Blog Posts on writing craft is being released.  A 6th, single volume, containing all 5 volumes will be released last, but can be pre-ordered now.

Those twenty posts on Tarot Just For Writers are indexed here for free reading:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_23.html

Here is the schedule and links to order or pre-order the Kindle-only editions as books.  The material is substantially revised.

The Not So Minor Arcana: Never Cross A Palm With Silver Aug 30, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0108MC26O

The Not So Minor Arcana: Wands Sept. 1, 2015  99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106RVPKU

The Not So Minor Arcana: Cups Sept. 11, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106SATX8

The Not So Minor Arcana: Swords  Sept. 17, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0100RSPM2

The Not So Minor Arcana: Pentacles  Sept. 21, 2015 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106RVKF0

The readership targeted by these works is Intermediate Students of Tarot and Writing.  It's all about combining the mystical with the pragmatic, or "Love" with the "All" that it conquers.

This co-blog is titled Alien Romance because we focus first and foremost on the Romance novel genre, but with special attention to the admixtures with almost any other genre.

The major, envelope theme we deal with here is Love Conquers All.

In my everyday reality-life, I do generally see that theme working, though most people looking at what I'm looking at do not see it.

To learn to handle Point of View in writing craft, the principle to apply is, "That which we take for granted becomes invisible."  Characters never see the ordinary things in their lives, no matter how bizarre their world is from the point of view of the reader.  That blind spot makes Characters seem real to readers because readers know people like that -- but of course the reader herself is not at all like that.  

What the reader does not see is the core of "art."

The Talent that makes an "artist" is two-fold:

1) An artist can see what others do not
2) An artist can depict what the artist sees in such a way that those who do not see can glimpse what they were certain did not exist.

Here is the other big clue we have worked with throughout all the writing craft blog posts I've done here (search this blog for the tag "Tuesday" to find my posts) --

WRITING IS A PERFORMING ART

Just like singing, acting, stagecraft of any kind, writing is a performing art.

Writers don't write novels.  Writers PERFORM novels.

Novels have a structure, just like a symphony has a structure.  If a piece of music doesn't have the symphony structure, it is not a symphony.  "Novel" is defined by having one of several structures.

The structure the novel has determines the audience that will respond maximally to it.

The same story can be written in any of several different structures and with each structure that story will "reach" a different Readership.

Targeting a Readership is a matter of understanding which structure the readership you want to talk to prefers.  The structure does not matter to the writer trying to say something, except that the message won't "reach" the intended audience unless the writer chooses the most popular structure.

However, in publishing, structures change and shift with the wind.

So writers learn a structure, just as a pianist learns a Chopin piece.  Then the writer PERFORMS that piece, adding in their own interpretation, their body language, their emotional punch.

How does a writer create, define, distill, and express that emotional punch to a specifically chosen set of people?

Just as an artist looks at a scene, or a model posed against a background, selects certain brushes, certain pigments, certain bits of charcoal to sketch the perspective lines, a writer looks at the world, at what their readership is looking at out there in reality, sees something the readership generally is missing, and depicts that scene with the missing bits colored in.

The missing bits, the color, the suggestion of a figure hiding in the shadows of the drapes in the murder-mystery room as the body is discovered, are what the writer adds to the events "ripped from the headlines."

Then the writer "performs" the story that's been ripped out of the real world of the readership.

Another analogy is the stage play or opera.  All the productions may be using (almost) the same script, but each production is "mounted" differently.  Each director, each cast, each costume designer creates something new and different from that script.  So certain classic plays get mounted over and over, because those scripts were written to allow for other creative artists to reshape the performance, adding their own nuances for a specific intended audience.

To write a novel that lives from generation to generation, that is re-created over and over by other creative artists, the original writer must leave room, leave the texture open, to invite the readers in.

Now, this idea that writing is a performing art was taught to me by my first writing teacher, a professional writer named Alma Hill, whose workshop I joined when I was in 7th or 8th grade (yes, I'd already decided I wanted to be a science fiction writer, but I determined that I would do it or die trying only when I was 16.)

So I learned WRITING IS A PERFORMING ART when I was in elementary school, and that maxim has withstood the test of time, over and over again.  It is so incredibly true, so deep, and as difficult to understand and master as SHOW DON'T TELL.

Now I'm going to add my own extension to that maxim:  Reading Is A Performing Art.

That's another way of saying the well known observation: "The story the reader reads is not that story the writer wrote."

And in fact, that ambiguity is what writers strive for when performing a well known piece -- such as a classic Star Crossed Lovers novel.

Readers deem a book "good" if they create it for themselves, and during reading, discover something  they did not know.  The knowledge discovered is knowledge they already had but didn't know they had.  In other words, the writer only pointed out the shadowy figure behind the drapes, and the reader then saw that figure.

This artistic process of showing a customer what they hadn't noticed before is what makes a classic live from generation to generation.  It is delivering the Revelation that the customer already had and making it seem like new information.

It is already there in their world, in everyday life, but just is not noticed until an Artist points it out.

Transmission of that artist's vision happens by a process spiritually analogous to the physical process called "resonance."  When one Guitar string is plucked, and the other an octave away vibrates, that is energy transmission by resonance.  We are now moving to charging our portable devices such as cell phones by electromagnetic resonance -- induction is how those charging pads work.

Art works the same way to transmit the "Oh!!!  NOW I SEE!!!" revelatory moment to the art consumer.

You get that from songs -- popular music, folk music, classical music, dance music -- and stories, and stage plays, and opera, and movies, and TV Series, and oil paintings, and book covers, and Photoshopped images of the highly improbable.

So, our current culture does not see (is blind to) the concept that Love Conquers All.

Yet, at the end of June, 2015, the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled 5-4 that all the states of the USA must marry Gay couples, and respect the marriage documentation from other states that marry Gay Couples.

That ruling came the day after the 6-3 ruling on Obamacare where dissenting Justice Scalia said that Obamacare is now actually SCOTUS-Care.

Most people (perhaps 75% of the US voting public) were completely oblivious to these Rulings in June when they came down.  Most didn't even know the cases were pending before the court.

Being aware of developments such as these two is the business of Artists.  Paying close attention to all the nuances, political jockeying for position, and forces moving large populations is the business of Science Fiction writers.

Understanding the invisible currents moving the visible pieces of our world around is the business of the Futurologist.

What is seen to be happening right now is important, but what is not seen by most observers is the commodity purveyed by Artists.

Artists, especially in the Performing Arts, acquire their stock-in-trade, the payload they deliver to their retail customers, by looking at what their retail customers are looking at, (SCOTUS decisions, for example) and seeing something their customers are not seeing.

This does the artist no professional good at all if the artist is unaware that their market has missed this shadow among the drapes.

So paying attention to what people know (Rasmussen Polls etc.), what they think and feel, and especially why they think and feel this and not that, is the business of the professional artist.

The professional performing artist makes their living selling people clues about what they are not-seeing, what they are missing.

The Professional Performing Artist must:
1) See something others don't see
2) Understand what others think they are seeing
3) Evaluate the difference in Vision between Artist and Customer
4) Generate an inductive current charging up the customer's night-vision-goggles

Right now, and very likely for the coming year, we have a heated, highly charged, argument going on between Heroic People Doing Good and Heroic People Doing Good.

Vast amounts of sheer human energy is pouring into achieving Good.

Both sides of this knock-down-drag-out fight are operating on the presumption that Love Conquers All.

Both sides are denying that Love Conquers All, one side more vociferously than the other.

And then there's all the people (maybe a third of the USA) who look at this with bewilderment, saying, "What are you guys fighting over?"

The Performing Artist's job is to reveal what is being fought over to those who can't see it.

Half the battle is already won with that particular readership.  They have a suspicion that they've missed something.  Many of them think the vicious fighting is over nothing-important.  Some think those suckered into fighting are just not very smart.  Others are bored by the conflict.

In previous series of posts on this blog, we've discussed in depth how Conflict is the Essence of Story, and how writers can "rip from the headlines" the raw material for dynamite best sellers.

As the SCOTUS-Care/Gay Marriage (even abortion figures in) issue erupts with volcanic fury, tearing the fabric of American Culture apart at the roots, the Performing Artist has a chance to make peace and strengthen that fabric.

At the same time, there are explosive issues coming in from abroad with the Middle East, Russia, China, (even Mexico, Central America, South America), and the U.N. all moving pieces of a huge puzzle.

By reading foreign sources for other angles on a given Event, writers can gain that perspective that allows creative Worldbuilding to flourish.  Find the truth behind Reality, step sideways into another reality where one of those Truths is not-True, and build a consistent world around that one difference.  That will give you a stage upon which to "mount" a powerful production of what seems an old-standard play.

All of these social issues have a deep connection to economic issues.  All of the corruption scandals have a tap-root into the social issues.  We are a Nation (and now a World) of one fabric.  Find the warp and woof, find the colored threads, find the design embroidered over that background, and depict what you see for your customer.

Here is an example of how to reduce this confusing mess to a simple principle you can use to charge your readers by induction.

Back in June, we got the SCOTUS ruling that the simple language of the Obamacare statue that said "established by the states" was actually "vague."  "Vague" is a legal term, and when a law is "vague" it is to be determined by non-elected regulators, by Elected executive branch officers (such as the President), and what they determine then becomes law.  That is an old, established principle.

SCOTUS ruled that clearly the Legislative Branch "intended" the Obamacare statute to function in such a way that those who had, hitherto, been unable to obtain healthcare could now have what everyone else takes for granted.

So SCOTUS upheld Obamacare (from its second major challenge) by saying the words, "by the states" didn't mean "by the states" because then the law wouldn't deliver healthcare to those it was intended to be delivered to.

Futurologists, accustomed to thinking 4 or even 5 moves ahead in Chess, will see that this ruling rewrites almost every law on the books in unpredictable ways.

But anyone living in today's world, especially those who do have decent access to healthcare, wants very much to share that wondrous marvel (modern science) with everyone.  Who would ever want to "deny" healthcare to anyone?

Providing for the least capable among us is our mandate from the provider of all, God.

So those who take their religion seriously have to be in favor of healthcare access for all.

Those who are convinced we're on our own regardless of whether God is real or not also want everyone to have access to healthcare -- for simple economic reasons.  The healthier you are the more productive you will be, even if you don't have a job.

Our economy was founded on Marriage.  A woman bore children, kept house, grew a vegetable garden, made things like clothing and blankets.  A man went out hunting, worked the fields, fought wars, defended the nation, founded companies, and decided national policy.

That's the old division of labor via sex-role.

The Futurologist can see the churn in our cultural base from the old division of labor along gender-based-rules to a new division of labor based on individual capability.

We have no advanced yet to the new position, and we have not left the old position behind.  We are in transition, and vacillating back and forth.  It is a dizzying confusion, and in one lifetime any individual may fight on various sides of this controversial process without understanding it as a thousand-year-transition-process.

Reveal the overall shape of the Division Of Labor Transition, and you'll have a best seller.

But you have to say something (make a thematic statement) that will "resonate" with the public.  That is the Performing Artist transmitting energy via Vision.

In the instance of a centuries long transition in Division of Labor, you can argue the justice of it on any side.

Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover Universe novels mix Science Fiction, Fantasy and Romance, even Gay Romance, and militant Feminism with sciences and economics based on Psychic Abilities (telepathy, telekinesis, trans-location, teleportation, just about everything).

Those few families that have strong enough psychic abilities are required to use them for the benefit of all.  From one point of view, it is enslavement by the majority of the minority for the benefit of the majority.  The slaves are kept in well appointed gilded cages, given wealth, prominence, respect and total control of the government.  But a few of them see the enslavement for what it is.  Thus the series of novels is a running commentary on our modern life.

Read it, and write another commentary in your own universe.

Consider this idea.  Where once, being born female relegated you to child bearing rearing and housekeeping, supporting a man who did everything else, now being born female does not determine your career opportunities.  Likewise, being born male doesn't determine that you will be drafted into the armed services before or just after college.

In fact, being born a particular gender does not irrevocably determine the gender you will live out your life within.

Today, gender is not a determinant.

Does that mean the old, tribal based, hunter-gatherer gender-based division of labor for the sake of survival now does not operate at all?

Does that mean that Division of Labor as a social principle is gone?

Perhaps not.

Perhaps, what will become the main determinant of your career potential is your Intelligence or "Talent."

Smart people (or mechanically talented, or whatever talent) work and produce all the goods and services our civilization requires, just as ALL MALES once did, and everyone else does everything else that ALL FEMALES once did.

Thus the unintelligent who can't get a job or create a business and employ themselves will do the child rearing, housekeeping, sewing, gardening, cooking, cleaning, shopping.  The intelligent of whatever gender, or shifting-gender, will provide for them.

In other words, the concept we are using now of "Welfare State" -- as an economic model for "Income Redistribution" -- will shake out into a new kind of "Marriage" of the Intelligent to the "Not-so-intelligent" which turns out to be "male-to-female" only sometimes, and by accident?

The problem with Obamacare is not that it provides healthcare to the poor, but rather in how the project is funded.  Nobody objects to providing healthcare.  Everyone objects to having their hard-earned money snatched from them against their will.

America is a charitable nation.  But people don't want charity.  They want rights.

Women arbitrarily consigned to housekeeping by gender at birth (even if they had an I.Q. of 140 and were married to a man with an I.Q. of 90), knew that their work earned them rights, that at least half if not more than half what their man was paid was actually earned by the woman's work.  The woman's work turned the man's salary into clothing, food, children, and a well ordered house.  Every morning she sent her well-rested husband off to work with a packed lunch and not a qualm or worry about whether the household would run well in his absence.

The theory in the 1930's was that a man was paid twice what a woman was paid because a woman didn't have a family to support, but a man did.  In fact, being married was a criterion by which men were hired.  It showed stability.  It showed the man was supported so he would show up every day and pay attention to his work.  And with a family to support, a man would strive harder to get his job done right.

Today, about an equal percentage of men and women are in that "employed" worker position, or running their own businesses.

We are seeing issues developing in schools with children who have both parents working, or actually have only one parent at home.

Raising children is a full-time, hands-on, undivided attention job.  Women used to be consigned to that role whether they were suited to it or not.

People forget the reason the anti-abortion laws were abolished was that we had a huge crop of "unwanted children" (even within marriages that had kids already).  Thus a big push developed out of the Love that Conquers All to avoid unwanted births because so many of those rejected children grew up to be troubled adults.  Criminal behavior was ascribed to being "unwanted" at birth.

And there was a lot of attention paid to the plight of children whose mothers were not suited to raising children.  Just because you're female at birth doesn't mean you are good mother material.

So all factions of society united behind gaining control of reproduction, and now we have the phrase "reproductive rights."

The biological fact that women get pregnant and men do not is considered the root of the social concept called, "Division of Labor."

Today, that division is no longer along gender lines.

Thus Gay Marriage seems a perfectly reasonable idea.  Who can possibly object to Love?  It does conquer all.  We all know that.  Making Love illegal just smacks of pure evil.

Gender, it turns out, (via nomadic tribal division of labor by gender) is the root of our economy.

Again, the problem with Obamacare is not that it provides for the poor (or unemployed, those knocked out of paying jobs by automation, and the unemployable because of disabilities), but rather that the way it is funded disrupts our economy.

Marriage and Healthcare are the same issue, and that issue is Economics.

An Artist can reveal that connection among three huge pillars of our lives to those who have missed it.

Division of Labor by Gender is the foundation of our economy since time immemorial.

We are in transition to a division of labor system that is not based on Gender.  What it will be based on has yet to emerge.

Intelligence/Talent might be one choice.  If that is the choice this year (the whole redistribution of wealth concept is based on division of labor by intelligence, enslaving the capable minority to feed the incapable majority), then how long will that system endure and what will replace it?

Remember, the key to answering this question is LOVE CONQUERS ALL.

There is one other principle of reality largely neglected in generating possible solutions to the problem of technological innovation disqualifying the majority of humanity from productive work.

Remember we don't define "productive work" as including "women's work."

Here's the principle.
You can't do a Good Deed by doing something Wrong.

Or put another way, "Two wrongs don't make a right."

Writers can mine all headlines, and real-life-situations for Conflict to generate story and plot by applying that principle.

In the case of Obamacare, redefining the meaning of "state" to include the Federal Government is a "wrong" even though it was done in a determined fury to do a "right" thing (provide healthcare.)

We MUST provide healthcare -- nobody disagrees with that.  The current plan though is based on a bizarre system that only enriches the accountants and invites theft because there's no way to get all that accounting done properly.

In the case of Gay Marriage, redefining the meaning of Marriage redefines the entire "division of labor" based on biology.

We MUST allow Love to bond people together.  Because of the "liberation" of women to work a man's job for a man's salary and become the main "bread-winner," we have seen a "disintegration" of the traditional family structure.

Psychological studies prove that humans need bonding with other humans.

Arranged Marriages, Marriage for Romance, Marriage for social-climbing, all the variations, all result eventually (sometimes after decades) in a sort of Bonding that is beneficial despite being strife-filled.

The objective is the Bond itself -- the strife may be the cost, but the Bond stabilizes the personality.

How can we, as a society, deny that stabilization to people who happen to be born LBGT?

But on the other hand, is "Marriage" the word that has to be redefined?

What will "Marriage" mean in the future?

Why is the definition of marriage so important to the religious segment of the population?

Is "Marriage" about Love, Bonding, Division of Labor, Reproduction, Supporting a Worker, social status, -- or is it about some mystical issue on the level of the Immortal Soul?

Is redefining "Marriage" worth the social price?

Is there another solution?  Before you go looking for another solution, look at the definition of the problem a little longer.

Apply the principle, "You can't achieve something RIGHT by doing something WRONG."

The problem is defining what is right and what is wrong.

How we "see" the difference between right and wrong, and choose what deeds, events, and ideas go into which category has to do more with what we do not see, than what we see.

People form opinions about what is "right" and what is "wrong" based on what they see, and for the most part people get it correct based on what they see.

If you knew only what they know, you'd believe what they believe.

It is the Artist's job in the social structure to Reveal what is hidden in the shadows, what the average person just does not see and thus does not know.

Given a wider vision, most people would gradually change their classification of what is "right" and what is "wrong."

It's the Artist's job to create that larger canvass and illuminate the shadows behind the curtain.

To Target a Readership, the writer has to discern what a particular readership sees, and what they do not see.  Then show the entire picture, leaving the reader to answer the questions that new information suggests.

In the case of the connection between SCOTUS-Care and Marriage Equality, the questions revolve around where the fury of technology will lead humanity in our quest to re-define Division of Labor.

Good fiction asks questions.  Good fiction does not answer questions.

Find an issue that energizes you, has you jumping up and down and screaming red-faced, then write about that one issue -- and show don't tell how exactly love conquers all.

Just don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Party Pooping

All right, I am a party pooper. I have always been the officious type  (I do realize that this is no desirable trait) and this may explain my obsession with artists' and authors' and musicians' rights.

Here's the thing. As I wondered what my topic for today would be, I checked my email and discovered no fewer than three copyright/trademark infringing messages from respectable people who ought to know better.

Some two-word (or three word) combinations of common words probably should never have qualified for a trademark in the first place. That's a whole other discussion... that might make mention of billionaire Donald Trump, singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, Paris Hilton, Homer Simpson version of "Duh!" (we can all say "Duh!" still, but not the version with a different vowel and an apostrophe) Justin Bieber (one word repeated many times) and many others.... including Facebook.

According to this blog, http://blog.dictionary.com/facebooktrademark/  Facebook has registered trademarks for words such as "face", "wall", "like" (in specific contexts, no doubt) and may be trying to find a back door way to claim an unregistered trademark of "book".... probably as a suffix to any website name.

But I digress:

"Don't even think about advertising a SUPER BOWL party ...www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=dffa905a-694b-4cc0-998b...

"If you are planning something, just remember: do not use “Super Bowl” by itself or in conjunction with other words or terms in any commercial promotions of any kind including your own events, third-party events, contests, games, product promotions, or sales. You just can’t do it."  This is the advice of law firm Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC to be found here:

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=dffa905a-694b-4cc0-998b-5065dfaf1a24

They conclude, "unless you have inked a licensing agreement with the NFL to use SUPER BOWL for any commercial purpose, consider yourself warned not to do so. “THAT BIG GAME SUNDAY” will have to do."





Enjoy the game!

Rowena Cherry.
Space Snark (TM)

Theme-Plot Integration Part 15 - Protecting a Community by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Plot Integration
Part 15
Protecting a Community
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 

In Part 14 of the Theme-Plot Integration series,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/10/theme-plot-integration-part-14-ruling.html
we took a hard look at Ruling a Community -- what it takes to worldbuild a social environment for your Fantasy World, or for a Contemporary Romance, or a Historical.  Science Fiction on other worlds likewise takes a great deal of hard thinking about the social matrix your character is embedded within.

We noted:
--------quote-----------
1st House defines the Self.  7th House defines the one-to-one Relationships, but in some forms of Astrology 7th House represents also The Public.

What does it take to be a RULER of a Community?

Well, first, the only times Ruling ever works historically, you see that the Ruler was a member of the Community (not an outsider -- that always fails dramatically which makes good story fodder).

So in effect, a Ruler from a Community is subconsciously imposing his own personal values on the community, but he got those values by growing up inside the community, so though "ruling" implies "imposition" what he's imposing was there already.

Think of it as singing on key in a choir and the Ruler just steps out and does a Solo.  Has to be a solo from the same song everyone is singing behind him.  The Ruler's values have to harmonize with those of the Ruled -- or the Community fragments.

So Humanity has been on a millennia long search for the operational relationship between Self and Other.

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

You'll find a list of the posts on Theme-Plot Integration here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/index-to-theme-plot-integration.html

And the series on Theme-Character Integration is listed here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/index-to-theme-character-integration.html

And as you know, I'm a big fan of fiction based on themes "ripped from the headlines" -- as long as it's the THEME you rip, not real characters, places etc.  If you are writing non-fiction, you have to get permission to use copyrighted work, so be careful what you rip out of the headlines.

In order to transform a "headline" -- or generally spotlighted public issue -- into a story or novel, you have to bore down deep into the material and extract the theme.

That's what we're going to do in this post today. 

One of the hottest political topics in the USA, and maybe the world right now, is the issue of cyber warfare,  Identity Theft, Industrial Espionage, Patent and Copyright infringement.

All of this rather abstract warfare is going on within the context of the  transgression of national borders.

In the Middle East, Isis renamed itself the Islamic State and trampled right over national borders from Syria to Iraq to Lebanon, and shows no signs of wanting to stop.  They are trying to carve out a new nation, then expand into a replay of the Ottoman Empire.

Some of the best Romances I've read have been set in the historical venue of the Ottoman Empire.  Think about Elizabeth Peters.

In Africa, similar groups are trying to move the borders of nations.

In the Americas, people from Iran, Syria, Iraq, etc. and Central American countries have poured over the US southern border at a time when there is a cultural movement among Mexicans living in the USA asserting that Arizona, New Mexico and parts of California and Texas actually must be re-possessed by Mexico.  (I didn't make that up!)

I follow these news headlines and park stories in a flipboard "magazine" called Pluto in Capricorn
https://flipboard.com/profile/jacquelinelhmqg
because at this time Pluto is transiting Capricorn.  Pluto is about power, about transformation, and Capricorn is about government, discipline.  Capricorn is "The Power Behind The Throne" while Leo is about "The Throne" and its occupant.

Leo is about leadership, ruling, reigning.  Capricorn is the power behind that leadership that puts it in place then keeps it in place.

Today, that means Leo is about who has won the Election, and Capricorn is about the source of power that made that happen (Money, Media, Scandals hidden).  Pluto transits tend to open hidden scandals to the light of day -- and that generally happens with explosive power.  It's not a surprise (that's Uranus) but it is a revelation, sometimes a religious one. 

Pluto is rules Scorpio, and thus is all about Secrets.  The Power Behind the throne, not on it.

So one of the objectives of those "in power" who remain behind the throne, invisible, out of the media spotlight, is simply to remain in power, to be able to predict what large "masses" of people will do under given circumstances.

Thus the primary tool today of the Power Behind the Throne is Public Relations -- the now math based analysis of how to instigate herd movement in huge numbers of people (e.g. win an election).

The current trend is away from making LAWS to enforce behavior and toward making REGULATIONS to enforce behavior.

Regulations are made by appointees, often not subject to legislative approval, (EPA, NHS, NSA, IRS, Department of Education and other alphabet soup agencies), and thus not responsive to voters. 

If there's a regulation that you don't like, you are absolutely helpless to protest.

If there's a law you don't like, you can vote against your Representative at the next election.

You can speak out against that elected representative who voted for the law you don't like.

That open discussion keeps the conversation between the Throne and the Community.

It does, however, circumvent the Power Behind The Throne.  It can derail the plans of the Powers That Be. 

Regulations are made to please the Powers That Be.  Laws are made to please the voters.  The two interests, in a well knit community, will largely coincide and become indistinguishable from one another.

The Powers That Be behind the throne strive mightily to keep all control initiatives as regulations, not law.

They need to keep them out of the headlines and away from the knowledge of those who would object and call elected legislators to do something about it.

 So I was scanning my feed on Google+ and got interested in a conversation on reading, and disallowing children to read certain things.

This is a conversation about, long ago, students reading Nancy Drew in school were "forbidden" by parents and teachers from reading such terribly bad books.  It's bad to be exposed to such bad art.  Others chimed in with lists of their most cherished kid's books that parents and teachers tried to prevent them from reading, and their strategies of defeating such restrictions.  Readers vs. non-readers.

The conversation got quite long and far-reaching, and a comment emerged:

Another person joined the conversation and noted that in High School, she had to attend a compulsory pep rally for school spirit, held during school hours.  She did, but kept her text books open and studied, intent on college and a bright future.  She was sent to the Principle for discipline, argued and won the case, didn't have to serve detention.

The incident the comment cited was some while ago.  Would that happen in today's world?  Would a teacher order a student to not-study during school hours in order to participate in whipping up an artificial emotional peak? 

I thought about that problem carefully, and realized it is a Headline Issue teased apart down to the thread of theme behind it.  But connected to that thread of theme are many other themes forming the warp and woof of 21st Century attitudes. 

These themes form the perplexing set of fallacies upon which our current, real-world decisions are being made.  Politicians are now calling each other "liars" and applying euphemisms to avoid using that incendiary world.  Soon the word liar won't be incendiary simply from being used to describe someone who is telling the truth.

All that brings us back to the series of posts on the use of Fallacy in creating fiction.

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/2013/03/theme-plot-integration-part-7-fallacy.html

The real-world fallacy under discussion here today is the fallacy of Protection.

Protection is very sexy, and a core element in any good Romance.

It's deep in human nature.  The pregnant female must be protected by a capable male, or the offspring will not survive birth.  The child must be protected by parents. 

The world is full of predators that eat humans (including human predators who eat souls), and those who can not protect themselves must be protected for the good of the community (or family).

A community that can not protect the young does not survive.

It's that primal.

But how does a community produce capable protectors?

By what process are protectors made? 

Those are questions spearheading the explication of A Thematic Statement - the core of your reason to write this novel. 

The theme is the reason your intended readers want to read the novel.  To get a browser to buy your novel, you must state the theme in the first sentence, with an enticing hook, a concretization of that theme.

A question is one way to construct a hook. 

For a novel with the theme "How A Community Produces Protectors" might be something like, "I never let my little brother get his feet wet." 

And then a conversation between the brothers indicating that the little brother, as an adult, does not feel capable of protecting (possibly a pregnant wife, or pregnant ex-wife?).  Something about the big brother always yanking a problem out of little brother's hands and fixing it for him, then being steaming mad that he has to do everything himself. 

See?  That is a show-don't-tell explicating the theme of "how protectors are made." 

Little brother was not allowed to mature into a protector -- and by disallowing that maturation, big brother managed to wreck his own emotional maturation.  Why?  Drunken parents?  Choose something that fits your theme to explain why these brothers just didn't make it to adulthood.

Or is that a fallacy?  Are protectors born, not nurtured?  Are only males capable of protective instincts?  (well, there wouldn't be any humans if human females weren't protective of their young).  What kind of Alien would have no protective instincts?

We all know the sexy jolt of suddenly finding yourself the object of someone else's protective instinct.  Like sucking, it is a primal reflex.

We suck at the breast for LIFE.  And our lives depend on being PROTECTED.  Sex is about protection.  (rape is the opposite)

But how does the CHILD become a protective ADULT? 

Is that romance novel material? 

So I thought about the issue of censoring kids' reading, prohibiting certain material, forcing other material. 

Everyone on the Google + discussion seemed to agree that Nancy Drew and similar works should not be prohibited, especially not by school teachers who had an urge (or directive from The Powers That Be) to regulate children's reading material.   

So I thought about other current school campus regulations that have only recently been enacted. 

Just as contradictory as prohibiting Nancy Drew is the current regulation enacted ostensibly for Security (a euphemism for Protection) of policing campus visitors.

We all know the shooting incidents highlighted by the media, but few of us know that the amount of such violence and the damage it does has actually decreased over decades.  Research some statistics and see what you find.  Many studies claim an increase; many claim a decrease.  It seems the current goal is zero incidents.

There's another theme in that.  "Is perfect control of all human behavior the responsibility of the government?" 

To defend students from all potential incidents, there is a new regulation (possibly not in your community yet) of not just forcing school visitors to identify themselves with photo-ID (guilty until proven innocent), but also to surrender said ID into a non-secure location.

Campus visitors must surrender a driver's license or unique photo-ID to a secretary who doesn't have even a Snowden-level security clearance, working behind a desk that doesn't even have Bank level security screens -- and in order to gain access to meetings on the campus, one must leave that secretary without a receipt for your unique identifier.

Such a card that actually identifies you is a card which is worth a bundle on the black market what with all the illegal immigrants a small portion of whom may be criminals, but all of whom are desperate for legit ID.  There's a whole industry devoted to turning stolen ID cards into illegal ID's.

But most people don't know such an industry exists.

Until you've had your Identity stolen, you have no idea how precious it is or how easy it is to steal (or the raped feeling that comes with that theft.)

Without your ID card, you are trapped on that campus as if it were an actual prison with barbed wire atop cement walls.  If you surrender your driver's license (and are law-abiding), you are a prisoner, and you've done that to yourself "voluntarily" in exchange for the privilege of attending whatever meeting you might be there for (PTA or whatever.) 

If someone with authority doesn't like what you say at that meeting, you might want to walk out and leave, but you can't if they won't give you your ID back until the Police arrive (even if you didn't do anything illegal).  Or you then would commit the crime of driving without a driver's license (unless you can get a ride -- maybe that's why UBER is so disliked by Authority?)

Do you see plot-threads spinning out of the core theme here?  Plot is fabricated out of theme -- remember that.  Character (strong and otherwise) is fabricated out of theme.  And the themes that sell books are the ones that make headlines. 

A Strong Character is likely to be a mature adult with full blown Protective Tendencies.  Such a person is likely to attend PTA and other community meetings, often held on school campuses (a lot of Hot Guys turn up at such meetings).

A strong character with protective tendencies who loves his/her Community is very likely to upset someone in authority from time to time.  That's the nature of being a Strong Character.

THEME: Should such Powers That Be have the ability to constrain the movements of a Strong Character? 

PLOT: What if the Power That Is makes a regulation and requires a hireling to enforce that regulation -- thus avoiding being available to Strong Characters who object to the regulation?  Powers That Be types of people are spotlight averse by nature.  They put a patsy up to take the fall for them. 

Already you see a cast of characters unfolding from a simple thematic element, and plots galore abound as soon as a Strong Character steps onto the stage.

So back to Regulations Today.  So after the meeting, you must (MUST -- the powers that be decree, must!) stand in a long, slow, line to turn in your visitor's pass and get your ID back provided nobody ahead of you in line has claimed it and absconded with it. 

A theft would make a nifty plot complication, but it works also as a plot-driver (the problem that must be resolved at The End.)

What if the stolen ID belonged to your female lead character, and the Hot Guy steps in and chases down the thief, tackles the Regulation-Maker and forces the State to make a law against denuding school campus visitors of their ID. 

Identifying yourself to gain entry to a public place is a reasonable invasion of privacy because the place is public.  Surrendering your Identification, thus imprisoning yourself, is not a reasonable invasion of privacy and could make a plot-driver if the Hot Guy at the meeting turned out to be a Lawyer, or have a little brother who is a lawyer.

Theft is a good plot-driver because for hours, your ID has been available to Identify Thieves for copying.

I know a bit about what can be done with hot-ID, and it is a card you NEVER let out of your sight. 

Even in supermarkets now, clerks don't swipe your card,  you do it with your own hands. 

FALLACY:
Stripping the honest of their ID prevents the dishonest (or crazy) from performing illegal acts on school premises. 

How could attacking the law-abiding PROTECTORS (parents) benefit the PROTECTED (kids in school). 

Students in CUSTODY of a school gain no protection from adults surrendering their Identity. 

Custody.  That's a legal term for in jail. 

Kids are guilty until proven innocent.  It's more like The Inquisition than like modern courts -- you just can't prove your innocence if you're a kid, because some other kid somewhere MIGHT actually do what you're being actively prevented from doing (even if you wouldn't.)

Immaturity is a sin.  The punishment is custody.

But the sentence is only 18 years, and you might live to 100, so shrug.

You've heard the term "over-protective parent." 

Good parenting consists of total protection of the new-born, gradually (ever so gradually and not in a steady progressing way) lifting that protection.  Protection of children is like training wheels on a bike -- left on too long it creates dependence.

If, all through High School, we are kept in a vacuum sealed campus and protected from ourselves, as humans we remain children even after sexual maturity. 

The Powers That Be behind all Political Parties, find an adult population expecting life to be "safe" (without risk -- because such over-protected humans never learn risk-management by getting hurt and paying a price for bad judgement) much easier to manage, to control, to sell things to, to get votes from. 

Such adults, oddly enough, become much more amenable to launching into a war just because someone in authority points at a threat and tells them the only way to deal with that threat is war.

A child who hasn't learned risk-management the hard way becomes an adult who lets "someone else" manage risk for them.  Such an adult is not a "Strong Character."

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/theme-character-integration-part-7.html

So that's what happens to a child who goes all the way through college on campuses that are "protected" as if they are playpens, not the real world.

But what of the parent who goes to meetings at such campuses all the years of raising their children?

Parents required to do such things as surrender their Identification for the privilege of exercising a right lose all sense of requiring of themselves self-discipline and honorable behavior. 

Keep in mind, schools are funded by the taxes that the parents pay.  Schools work FOR the parents attending meetings.  Yet they treat the parents as if the parents were still children, imposing regulations, requiring this and that.  The thematic message is that no matter what you do, how old you are, how many children you have, or who you vote for, you are never -- ever -- going to be a decision-maker.  You are a school kid when you come back as a parent.

So throughout life, to survive (at work, play, and while parenting) one must be absolutely submissive, and set aside one's Identity.

OK, a card is just a symbolic identity, but we're talking fiction-writing and in fiction symbolism is a key ingredient.  It is key in fiction because in real life it is very powerful.  Read up on the math behind Public Relations and see how they use symbolism to sell cars and perfume.

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

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

Practice makes perfect. 

By surrendering a driver's license to a non-secure location run by a non-Security Clearance secretary, we are practicing submission to authority instead of practicing being the authority that we must be to execute Parenting well. 

So how can we teach children to manage the power of authority when they are adults if they do as we do rather than as we say, and we do not take responsibility for our own actions? 

Identity is Responsibility (Saturn, Capricorn).  Identity is defined by boundaries, borders, just as countries have borders.

You can't develop a Strong Character without a strong Identity (an identity with borders.)  It's the invasion of your borders that wreaks destruction in the aftermath of rape.  Rebuilding those borders is a process that gives your Main Character a colorful history and a clear reason to Be A Strong Character.

Strength doesn't come upon one without effort, without pain to create the gain.  That is called GROWING PAINS -- growing up hurts. 

Good parenting is about gauging how much pain it takes for your child to grow, and where exactly the border is beyond which pain leads to destruction not growth.  One gains that judgement by having been well-parented.  It's not inherited.  It's learned.   

Here is a news item related to the "don't read that book" decrees of teachers long ago via the Privacy Borders themes.

http://www.slashgear.com/facebook-also-uses-photodna-to-prowl-for-illicit-images-07340312/

And here's the counter-argument on "privacy" -- at what AGE do you gain the right to privacy?  An infant has none, a teen some, but when do you get all the privacy a human is going to get?

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/08/08/facebook-messenger-privacy-fears-heres-what-you-need-to-know/

Privacy is about being able to read under the desk in class, choose what books to read, (or not-read), read all night on a school night then perform well the next day despite that expenditure, try out something your associates disapprove of, and pay too much for an item. 

Privacy is about doing your own risk-assessment, then making your own decisions accordingly, acting on your own judgment and reading the book anyway, or studying during a pep rally anyway. 

Getting the right answers in your risk-assessment process takes much practice, and without that practice, no matter how old you live to be, you will never be able to make reliable judgement calls for yourself, or your children.

If privacy is violated at the age when judgement is developing, then the individual will never mature into an adult, no matter how many years are lived. To find plot-threads from that set of Protection-From-Privacy or Protection-Of-Privacy themes look carefully at who benefits from either set of regulations and/or laws.

WHO BENEFITS gives you the Cast of Characters.

WHO PREVAILS gives you the Main Character.

WHO HOLDS THE KEY TO PREVAILING gives you the B-story character, or the Secondary Character, the Main Character's lover, or second point of view character.

When you use two points of view, you need two themes, but the themes have to both be derived from the same Master Theme.

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

Privacy is about the right to secret ballot, and personal Identity. 

That decree to exclude Nancy Drew (a series designed for a pre-privacy age-group) is offensive because it violates privacy and therefore thwarts the development of a personal Identity capable of  relying on a personal risk-assessment, and then acting.

All of this reminds me suddenly that I did tackle many of these issues in a novel, PERSONAL RECOGNIZANCE though many in this theme bundle were not addressed.



Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com