Stubborn Skepticism Versus Indiscriminate Gullibility

Working on a paranormal romance novella, I'm presently dealing with a recurrent problem in fiction of the fantastic: How long should a character keep rejecting the possibility of the supernatural before admitting it exists? How do you find a balance between jumping to the conclusion that every anomaly proves the existence of a vampire or ghost and clinging to adamant disbelief in the face of overwhelming evidence? Most people who discovered a century-old photograph that looked uncannily like a present-day acquaintance wouldn't think he must be a vampire, after all. They'd say, "Wow, what an amazing family resemblance." On the other hand, if they saw their friend turn into a bat or a cloud of mist, it would be only sensible to entertain the vampire hypothesis.

In DRACULA, Dr. Seward at first quite logically rejects Van Helsing's pronouncement that Lucy has risen from the dead as a vampire. After all, Seward is a man of science, running a "lunatic asylum" according to the most up-to-date precepts and practices. Of course he's aghast that his revered teacher, with advanced degrees in multiple fields, would embrace outmoded superstitions. Even when they find Lucy's coffin empty, Seward falls back on the obvious explanation of grave robbers. Only when he witnesses the undead Lucy walking in the cemetery does he open his mind to the horrible truth. After that, though, he drops his objections; he doesn't try to insist she's a hoax or hallucination.

Right now I'm reading THE HOLLOW PLACES, by T. Kingfisher, an outstanding horror novel featuring an alternate universe. It offers a skillful treatment of the characters' shift from skepticism to belief. When the narrator finds a hole in a wall of her eccentric uncle's combination home and novelty museum, she assumes a visitor must have damaged the drywall and left without mentioning the mishap. Upon starting work on a patch, she and her friend Simon discover a large open area behind the wall. Naturally, they first believe they've stumbled into extra space that was walled off for some reason. As they explore, they see that it's much larger than the dimensions of the building should allow. Even then, they don't think they've fallen through an interdimensional portal. They discuss ideas such as a tunnel constructed by illegal alcohol dealers during Prohibition and try to rationalize the fact that they don't seem to have gone up or down a level as they should have. When they open a door onto a fog-shrouded river dotted by numerous small islands, though, they realize they've entered an alternate world, an "anti-Narnia," as the narrator says. Despite Simon's joking remarks about being poisoned by black mold, they don't seriously waste time on the possibility that they're hallucinating.

My work in progress features a ghost child who performs poltergeist-like tricks. At first, the protagonist does her best to attribute the odd events in her house to the cat, her seven-year-old son, or even herself in absent-minded lapses. Further along, she contemplates whether she might be sleepwalking and moving things around or whether she dreamed the strange singing she thought she heard. The sight of the little girl vanishing before her eyes forces the heroine to accept the supernatural as real. I consider it plausible that an otherwise normal, stable person would believe in a ghost rather than assume she's suddenly gone crazy with no provocation. The latter happens in vintage horror movies, not ordinary life. For the same reason, her highly skeptical boyfriend converts to the ghost hypothesis when he, too, witnesses the child disappearing into thin air.

Where should the creation of a character in fantastic fiction draw the line between the extremes of hardheaded materialism and softheaded gullibility? The former can make a character very annoying, but the latter can lose the reader's sympathy, too. The main reason I never cared for the SCOOBY-DOO cartoon series when our kids used to watch it was that, no matter how many times the gang exposed a haunted house as a hoax, when they investigated the next "ghost" Shaggy always believed in it as uncritically as ever.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Science in SF

A LOCUS article by Kelly Lagor discusses how accurate the science in science fiction needs to be:

Putting the Science in Science Fiction

She distinguishes two aspects of the use of science in stories, "how science plays a role in a story’s message" and "how it is portrayed within the story itself." She quotes numerous SF writers on the issues of factual accuracy of the science in fiction, the author's responsibility to the reader, and how the reader's trust can be won and kept. Elizabeth Bear, for instance, "distinguishes between how different types of stories require different types of accuracy."

Personally, I lean strongly toward the "accuracy required" end of the opinion spectrum. If, as one author quoted mentions, the science in the story is based on present-day facts and theories, it's particularly important not to violate that present-day knowledge, because some readers will certainly notice and object. In a more speculative, futuristic story, the writer has more scope for imaginative variation. And then there are the familiar tropes with no solid basis in contemporary science, such as FTL drives and time travel, which can be accepted as fictional premises for the sake of setting up the background for the plot.

In works that use science fiction tropes for purposes of allegory or satire rather than quasi-realistic extrapolation from real-world facts and theories, I concede that accuracy doesn't hold the highest priority.

The only science fiction I've written consists of stories in the Darkover anthologies. Hard-SF people might not consider Darkover true science fiction because of the unproven status of psychic powers in real life. Although my vampire fiction features naturally evolved, not supernatural, vampires, I don't venture to call it SF because the biology of my vampire species isn't worked out in depth. I include just enough of a biological rationale for their traits to (I hope) suspend the reader's disbelief. So it's more like "science fantasy."

Regardless of faithfulness to current factual knowledge, the writers surveyed in Lagor's article agree that authors must consistently follow the established rules of their fictional worlds. This precept applies to both science fiction and fantasy (not to mention all kinds of "realism" as well). That's one reason I prefer to write fantasy; one can invent one's own rules as long as they make internally consistent sense.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Hard and Soft SF

The September-October 2019 MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION contains an article that indirectly addresses the perennial question of defining science fiction,"Science: Net Up or Net Down?" by Jerry Oltion. He asks, "How scientifically accurate does a story have to be?" How far from scientific rigor can a work drift before it ceases to be "science fiction"? Is STAR WARS science fantasy, space opera, or science fiction? Many hard-science readers wouldn't consider Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series SF, because they don't believe in the scientific possibility of psychic powers. (Personally, I classify "space opera" as a subset of SF. And if a story claims a scientific rationale for its content, I'm prepared to accept it as science fiction. Did Edgar Rice Burroughs's John Carter series, which includes several wild implausibilities, such as a fertile union between a Terran male and an oviparous Martian female, cease to be SF when it was discovered that Mars holds no advanced life?) Oltion begins his essay by analyzing the book and movie THE MARTIAN, demonstrating that the wind forces possible on Mars couldn't endanger the lander and force the crew to evacuate, stranding the protagonist. Oltion admires the story anyway, willing to give the author a pass on this one point for the sake of setting up the plot.

As he puts it, "the author gets one porcupine," meaning the reader will swallow one factually problematic element but seldom more than one. The greater the deviation from possibility, the more suspension of disbelief is required. Faster-than-light travel, for instance, is a convention we accept for the sake of moving stories along, provided everything else in the work is "rigorously scientific." Or not, such as STAR WARS. If we find the tale captivating enough, we can overlook numerous factual implausibilities. Going too far, though, resembles "playing tennis with the net down." Oltion declares, "I'll read anything that hangs together internally, unless some wild howler knocks me out of the story." It also matters whether the writer appears to know when he or she is bending the rules and shows evidence of doing it deliberately for sound reasons.

So is internal consistency the minimum requirement? Oltion thinks so, but he cites students in a writing workshop he taught, who didn't even seem to care about that. He appears to throw up his hands in surrender at this point, declaring, "You can write anything you want as long as you can pull it off with enough panache to satisfy your readers" (starting with the editor who has to like the piece enough to publish it). Of course, a story composed with this philosophy will attract different readers from those who favor hard SF and insist on scientific rigor. In my opinion, internal consistency can't be jettisoned. In the type of fiction I write, fantasy and supernatural, it's even more important than in SF. If a writer expects readers to swallow the "porcupine" of magic, psychic powers, supernatural creatures, or other fantastic elements, nothing must throw the reader out of the fictional world. Everything has to hang together, and if (for example) the hero rides an ordinary horse, it better behave like a real horse.

I have a strong preference for playing with some sort of net. Inconsistencies do throw me out of a fictional world. And yet I can't deny that an exciting story populated by engaging characters—the latter being, for me, the most important factor in a story's appeal—may cover a multitude of authorial sins. Still, in my opinion a writer risks losing a large segment of the potential readership by ignoring consistency and solid world-building. It's not as if such attention to detail is likely to repel other kinds of readers!

On the whole, however, I can support the general principle with which Oltion sums up: "So as readers, and as writers, decide what kind of story you like and plan accordingly."

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Acceptable Breaks from Reality?

The TV Tropes site has a page called "Acceptable Breaks from Reality," about the "unrealistic" things regularly allowed to happen in fiction and film in order to move the story along, even though the elements aren't true to life:

Acceptable Breaks

This trope came to mind when I watched last week's episode of NCIS, a favorite series I've faithfully followed since its inception (even though I didn't completely like the star, Gibbs, at first and could hardly stand Agent Tony DiNozzo for the first season or two). Despite my fondness for the show, I'm often distracted or outright exasperated by some of their routine plot devices. One of the most "acceptable," which bugs me anyway if I stop to think about it, falls under the TV Tropes category "The Main Characters Do Everything." They seem to have only one medical examiner, Dr. Mallard, and one assistant, Dr. Palmer, doing all the autopsies. This large, busy organization has only one forensic technician, who literally does everything, including conducting DNA tests instead of sending them out to a specialized lab. In one episode, while the forensic tech was absent for some reason, two of the regular agents temporarily took over her lab and analyzed evidence. With no training or certification in that field? Yikes. Yes, I realize programs want to keep the focus on the stars and don't want to pay a lot of actors to play minor characters just to make the staff look realistically large. How much would it cost, though, to have a group of extras in the background or walking in and out of the picture so that the spaces devoted to autopsy and forensics would appear to be populated in a lifelike way? The program does that for the main NCIS office. In those scenes, the stars are far from the only people on the set.

Most of the time, I don't think about this issue while watching the show. Nor do I gripe too much about the "murder of the week" template, despite the fact that real NCIS agents (as far as I know from having been a Navy wife for thirty years) work more on such crimes as burglaries and assaults in Navy housing than on murders and terrorist conspiracies. The former types of investigations, admittedly, wouldn't be very exciting unless a body turned up before the first commercial. Some other "breaks from reality," however, actively grate on me. For instance,the agents frequently travel to other countries in the course of investigations, although they're based in the Washington, D.C. area, their presumed jurisdiction and operational purview. And they often go to other cities for brief interviews with potential informants instead of calling on the phone. That office must have a lavish travel budget! Last week's episode included several of my "pet peeves." Usually, the number of days covered by an episode isn't specified, so the audience may assume, with a little indulgence, that enough time has elapsed for lab tests to get done. This one, however, explicitly begins and ends on Christmas Eve. The forensic tech uses her superhuman skills to determine whether an unidentified baby is the child of a dead murder suspect. In real life, DNA analysis takes between 24 and 72 hours to complete. (I looked it up.) Yet she gets a result from the DNA paternity test in only an hour or two, judging from how much story time the rest of the episode spans.

Throughout the series, the agents constantly delve into official records that they shouldn't be allowed to access without warrants. Maybe that issue can be overlooked in the interests of streamlining the action. Entering private dwellings without warrants, however, is a more glaring violation. In the referenced episode, two agents talk the suspect into letting them into his apartment, even though they don't have a search warrant. So far, okay. But then they force their way into a closed room he has forbidden them to enter. No warrant, no permission from the occupant, no probable cause. In an actual case, any evidence they found would be tainted. At some point the suspect produces a gun, and one of the agents shoots him dead. We never hear a word about her being suspended pending investigation, as she would be, or even a passing comment about that possibility. For that matter, throughout the series the agents are continually involved in car chases and shootouts with no apparent repercussions.

Then there are the often unintentionally humorous "flyover country" slip-ups in occasional episodes. I know that in many movies and TV series, southern California stands in for almost everywhere. But couldn't film technology have deleted the mountains from the background of a scene allegedly set in Norfolk, Virginia (on the Atlantic coast, a half-day's drive from the nearest mountain range)? As a resident of Maryland, I was especially amused as well as mildly annoyed by an incident when the agents visited the Carroll County sheriff. (Why, I don't remember; that seemed like another interaction that could have been handled by phone.) According to its website, that department is "a full service law enforcement agency" with a staff of 260 employees. To the writers of NCIS, the word "sheriff" must have been free-associated with "Mayberry." They have the sheriff claiming he can't leave the office because there's nobody on the premises except himself and one deputy.

Minor "breaks from reality" to avoid slowing down the story are one thing, but critical research failures or the appearance of just not caring are another. What unrealistic details in movies and TV programs can you overlook for the sake of plot streamlining, and which ones make your teeth grind in exasperation?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Soul Mates and the HEA, Real or Fantasy Part 3 - Convincing Your Reader

Soul Mates and the HEA, Real or Fantasy

Part 3

Convincing Your Reader

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

Previous parts of this series on Soul Mates linked into and through the HEA are:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/03/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/08/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

Part 2 starts with a list of related posts and the Index post to the series of Believing in the Happily Ever After.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/index-to-believing-in-happily-ever-after.html

One major reason "the general public" does not read Romance Genre, or hasn't read any Romance but believes Romance is trash, is that to be a genuine Romance popular among Romance readers (and award winning), a novel must have an HEA, a Happily Ever After ending for the most beloved couple.  Other Characters may get their comeuppance, but the main Characters must leap off the end of the novel into an HEA.

The general public doesn't accept the premise that the HEA exists in real life.  At most, real people can hope for an HFN (Happy For Now) state of affairs.

That is actually not true, but very few people understand that, so if you are aiming to market a Romance to the general (wider) public, then you must have at least one skeptical Character who will have his/her mind changed by your Thematic argument, and one Character who will not undergo a shift of opinion. 

Though Theme is always a simple, clear, short statement, the novel the theme generates is actually an argument in which the writer must present the case for, and the case against, the theme, ending without forcing a conclusion on the Reader.  The novelist must respect the Reader's intelligence.

This kind of Reader skepticism about the premise of the novel, about the essential defining theme of an entire genre, is one thing Readers of Science Fiction and Mystery have in common.

In Mystery/Detective genres, the defining theme is that Justice Will Prevail.

In Science Fiction and sub-genres, the defining theme is that Science Conquers All, even though right now Science is utterly wrong about the novel's main problem or premise (e.g. you can't go faster than the speed of light).

In Science Fiction, the favorite genre of working Scientists, the state of your reader's mind when you make them believe the impossible (e.g. you can go faster than light) is called "Suspension of Disbelief."

You don't have to make them believe, but just stop disbelieving.

Previously, the Romance Genre aimed at an audience that already believed in the existence and accessibility of the HEA - just find your Soul Mate, win his attention, and you've got it made.

Romance readers find "accidental meetings" with the Soul Mate entirely plausible -- in fact, Romance genre audience expect that most often in real life, that its how Soul Mates meet -- by accident.

These attitudes make Science Fiction and Romance Readers almost identical markets.

In real life history of Science, most civilization blossoming Discoveries happened by accident.

In real life history of Romance, most vast culture shifting Stories (Helen of Troy), happen almost by accident.

But after the initial Event happens, both genres require Strong Characters to act boldly and heroically to move lives, family attitudes, public Grant Money, into the project (a marriage, or a Doctoral Thesis).

Science Fiction is usually about a Scientist who is good at Science being called out to do Action/Adventure Heroic Deeds.  The cliche image of the Scientist is a person who is physically inept, socially challenged, and incapable of heroism (Clark Kent).  The story in Science Fiction is usually about Clark Kent ripping off his shirt and leaping into the sky as Superman.

Romance is usually about a young girl who lives in an intolerable situation, may be good at managing the situation but is called out to do Scary Commitment Heroic Deeds.  The cliche image of the young woman is a person who is subservient, a victim, a child in an adult body who wants to be rescued and taken care of -- instead of rescuing and taking care of.  The story in Romance Genre is about the child inside growing up into the adult role of womanhood (despite having to be a Lady, sometimes).

In other words, both genres are about a revelation of Identity.  Self-discovery, or demonstration to others about the true nature of this Character.

So how can the Science Fiction Romance writer convince Readers to suspend disbelief in the HEA?

Both genres focus on Characters becoming Strong.

In Science Fiction, the Character's Strength is developed as physical challenges are overcome using intellectual attributes.

In Romance, the Character's Strength is developed as sexual challenges are overcome using intellectual attributes.

You might challenge the idea that hot-sweaty Romance requires application of intellectual attributes, but consider the intellectual courage necessary to throw off the shackles of convention, of self-image, of Identity, and explore the full range of the physical body.

In Theme-Character Integration Part 13
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/07/theme-character-integration-part-13.html
we pondered the idea that strength of character, in real life and in fantasy fiction, is proportionate to the strength of the connection between Soul and Body, that allows the Soul to train, tame, and domesticate the animal body, the purely physical nature.

A human differs from other creatures in that the human Soul is keeper and custodian of the Body.  When the purely animal nature prevails, the person behaves like any other primate - with lust overcoming common sense, with the need for revenge ripping the life to shreds.  Humans who commit what civilization calls "atrocities" against other humans, or who derive joy from ripping animals to bloody shreds, (but aren't technically insane people), are often recognized as "animals" because the Soul part of the person is not evident to other humans.

So if the hypothesis that the Soul exists and that humans are dual-beings, body-and-soul, welded into a single, inextricable whole, is accepted by the Reader, then the idea of a Soul Mate can be easily introduced.

So again, how can a Science Fiction Romance writer convince the wider readership to suspend disbelief in the HEA?

What exact is a Happily Ever After?

Science fiction readers have one concept of "ever after" -- Romance genre fans might not be as well versed in the mathematics of Time and so some might have a different idea of how long "ever after" lasts.

Lets assume the readers we are discussing all regard "ever after" as "until death do us part."

Dying before you've held your grandchildren, or taught them to fish, hunt and till the soil, could be considered a tragedy, while dying of old age surrounded by grandchildren would be a satisfactory "ever after."

This brings us to the question of what is Happiness?

It is said to be impossible to achieve by pursuing it.  But what is happiness?

How can you portray two Characters reaching an HEA if you, the writer, does not have a working definition of Happiness?

Happiness has to be very complex and must have some abstract, maybe mystical, components.

Maybe Romance Genre's HEA is actually not Happily Ever After, but Peacefully Ever After?

Can you have happiness without peace?  Can you have peace without happiness?

Some couples happily fight, bicker, rage and take out the anger generated at a job on their Mate.  It may not look or sound like peace, but something tranquil is going on there.

Some couples never raise their voices to each other or pick and criticize each other.  A few of those actually stay married through their grandchildren's weddings!

Sometimes marriages founder when one person is happy and the other not.  A spouse's happiness might not be contagious.

What is happiness?

Maybe we just have to accept that Happiness is different for each individual person.

Or maybe the sensation, the emotion of Happiness is the same for everyone, but the external conditions that trigger that emotional condition differ from person to person?

Could happiness depend on external situations not influenced by individual preferences and actions?

What is a Happily Ever After ending?

Are people happy when nothing bothers them?

Are there people who love to be miserable?  Or at least morose?

Would eliminating annoyances require removing bothersome, annoying and irritating elements from the environment?

Can people be happy in turmoil?

Well, then what is the relationship between Happiness and Strength of Character?

How many War Romances have you read and enjoyed?  Happiness (maybe not of the ever after variety, but definitely happiness) can be triggered and even sustained in a war situation with explosions and falling debris at irregular intervals.

So it isn't always the external situation that determines if the happiness is an ever-after sort.

Maybe Soul Mates create happiness for each other, just because they are Soul Mates.

A "mate" is not a copy, not the same -- but complementary.  A mate is not an opposite so much as a "fill in the weaker spots" fit.

In the case of Strong Characters as defined by the idea of Character being the connection between Soul and Body, and strength being the leadership of the Soul over the Body (STRENGTH CARD IN TAROT).

Can a weak Character be Happy?

Can an un-mated Character be Happy?

There are probably as many ways to achieve Happiness as there are definitions of Character, Soul and Happiness.

Each definition of Happiness, Character and Soul, and every combination of the three, generates a Theme which is vast enough to support an entire novel series.

A "story of my life" is centered on the pivot point of the change in the main Character.

As noted above, in Science Fiction it is the matured Science-nerd becoming the Action-Hero -- in other words, balancing intellectual courage with animal courage, Soul-Body Integration becoming strong and firm.  Thus Science Fiction is about a Weak Character Becoming A Strong Character.

Romance genre is about the matured girl becoming the Emotion-Hero -- in other words, balancing intellectual courage with animal courage, "giving herself to a man."  The Soul-Body integration of the valiant woman, the committed warrior woman, "makes a man of" a mere male.

In both genres, the Character becomes stronger, more integrated Soul and Body, because of the external Events of the Plot.

However, in Romance genre, you must deal with 4 variables ( a Boolean Algebra ) like the 4 Letters of the Divine Name.

You have two Souls, and two Bodies, and all four of them must undergo some change to fit together and become a single, strong unit.

The process (story and plot) of growth and change can be very painful, very miserable and not at all happy.  Happiness, though, might well be defined as having grown -- having grown enough to be able to look back and see the former self as immature.

Both Science Fiction and Romance genres are about yearning, striving, and committing to a strike for freedom (from different things, but always becoming free is the goal).

So it could be that both Science Fiction and Romance are genres aimed at a readership that prizes Freedom as opposed to Power.

Power may be identified as "My Will Prevails Over Yours - Don't Bother Me - Get Out of My Way Or I'll Destroy You."

Neither Science Fiction nor Romance Lead Characters will abide oppression -- not being the oppressor, or being oppressed.  All the great novels in both genres have at their core a Character striving for Self-Determination.

Both genres define the "end" of the story as the point where the freedom to choose a path through life has been achieved.

Freedom of that kind is the definition of "being adult."

The five year old dreams of being allowed to "stay up all night" or "go to bed when I want to."  But once mature, and having done that a while in college, it is revealed not to be "freedom" at all, but irresponsible.  Maturity brings behavior altered by the perception that true Freedom is defined by discharging responsibilities.  One must sleep to perform well the next day.

Human Happiness is inextricably bound to Freedom.

Apparently, humans can't achieve Happiness without Freedom -- but it may be possible that Freedom itself does not induce happiness.  There might be such a thing as too much freedom, a kind of directionless life that stalls into misery for lack of responsibilities.

They say that the elderly need to feel needed (i.e. be responsible for someone or something), to survive the longest possible time.

Perhaps the HEA is the Freedom To Choose One's Own Responsibilities?

They say there is a price to Freedom, and that every generation must fight for it.

Yet, even a Slave (as in a person who is owned, bred, worked by someone else) can be Happy.

How can a Slave be happy without freedom?  Even from Biblical times, some have preferred to remain slaves even when given their freedom.  There is even a ceremony involving piercing the ear to make a person who chooses to remain a slave (when they don't have to) into a permanent slave.  That is a FREE choice, and could lead to an HEA for that Soul.

Perhaps Freedom is a matter of the Soul.  If the Soul is free to grow, mature, become better integrated with the Body, achieve the purpose of that Soul's incarnation, then being technically enslaved would not inhibit happiness.

But being abused (beaten, tortured, raped, whipped) would prevent most Souls from achieving the purpose of their incarnation.

So, Freedom may not be Happiness -- but most likely you can't achieve Happiness without some Freedom.  The type of freedom may differ from Character to Character and historical epoch to epoch, but some sort of Freedom is an essential ingredient in the HEA.

Now we come to the intersection between Romance and Science Fiction.  Freedom.

The typical Action/Adventure Science Fiction novel involves the Main Character facing some sort of threat, usually physical, which he or she averts by heroic action.  Space Wars, Invasions, Revolts, being lost in space or slogging across an Alien Planet -- the stakes are always somehow involved in keeping or achieving freedom of choice.  Faster Than Light travel is the freedom to colonize other planets.

Humans regard any threat to freedom as a menace.

In Romance, the Main Character faces some sort of restriction in choice of Mate -- being the Ward of a step-parent, being the heir who has to marry for peace for the Kingdom, the chosen is unsuitable (or downright Alien) or just no Mate material in sight anywhere, something prevents the freedom to choose a Mate, and heroism must avert that threat.  Happiness is consumption of that Mating by free will choice.

Then there are the Romances where it is not so much the free Will as the Body's Lust that makes the choice.  And there are the Science Fiction novels where the Hero is sent on a mission he would rather avoid.

All of these typically popular novels lead to an ending where Freedom To Choose is secured.

We all know that the price of freedom is mortal combat, and each generation must win their own freedom.  Freedom does not come as a gift.  It can't be inherited.  It must be bought by the sweat of your own brow.

Freedom to choose your Destiny is the essence of both genres. 

If you choose wrong, you may not be headed for an HEA but only an HFN.

The Science Fiction Romance writer has a unique opportunity to explain the HEA to the general readership as winning the fight for freedom - freedom from oppressive dictatorships, from government, from nosey neighbors, social peers, even parents and cultural traditions such as Religions enforced by government authority.

It can't be freedom from Authority, per se, because that is the goal of the villains.  It has to be freedom to choose which Authority to ally with -- not subject or subordinate to.  Equal-to-Equal is a Free relationship -- not subjugation.

As we noted in the brief over-view of Jack Campbell's universe of military science fiction stories, ...

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/08/reviews-38-jack-campbell-genesis-fleet.html

...his Hero (who lives in two epochs of history of the galaxy separated by many years of cold sleep), Black Jack Geary, makes his early reputation fighting for the freedom of the new human colony he has just moved to.  He has a wife and child there, a commitment to a brighter future, and is living an HEA when a militaristic colony attempts a "takeover" of other colonies.

He fights for his family's life, prospects, and mostly freedom.

All military science fiction can be reduced to the simplistic term of a "fight for freedom."  What differs is the opponent, and the freedom to do what, and the tools the Hero fights with.  It doesn't have to be guns and space ships.  It can be sensors, analytic machinery, or even basic test tubes and centrifuges.

All Romance can be reduced to the simplistic term of a "fight for freedom" to choose one's own Mate.

Both genres are about striving for Freedom, and though it might be decades and many novels until it is achieved, Freedom is the Ending.

Freedom lasts through one generation's lifetime - then must be fought for again.

The fight for Freedom seems to be intrinsic in human nature.  And our thesis is that "human" is defined as a Soul welded to a Body (which definition could work just fine for Aliens who are not technically human).

That vision of human nature explains clearly why "freedom" must be fought for in each generation --  from the Body's point of view, the Soul is doing a "hostile takeover" of the Body, while from the Soul's point of view, the Body is striving to enslave the Soul.

All good fiction written by and for humans is driven by Characters with an Internal Conflict (Soul-Body conflict) generating the Story, which is projected or mirrored in an External Conflict generating the Plot.

Humanity's real life, real world, existence is the constant struggle between the animal nature of the Body and the spiritual nature of the Soul.

That struggle is the source for War -- from domestic disputes to Nuclear Holocaust, War is the animal need for dominance pitted against the Soul's need for Freedom.

Happiness, insofar as living humans can experience it, is at the balance point between the animal body and the spiritual soul.

Once achieved, that balance can be stabilized by a Soul Mate whose strengths complement rather than duplicate the strengths of the partner.  The child creates the very stable, very strong, triangle -- which is stronger than any mere pair can be.

Depict the steps necessary to stabilize a Character at that balance point between Freedom and Responsibility (Uranus and Saturn), and you may be able to lead skeptical Readers to suspend disbelief in the HEA long enough to enjoy some happiness.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Suspension of Disbelief

I recently read SIRE AND DAMN, the latest (I hope not the last, but I fear it may be) "Dog Lover's Mystery" by Susan Conant. It started me thinking about the conventional but "unrealistic" elements mystery authors have an implicit agreement with readers to treat as believable, similar to the theatrical convention that actors can speak "aside" to the audience without being heard by any other characters onstage.

Most obvious is the convention that makes amateur detective series possible at all. We have to accept as normal that a hero or heroine not involved in law enforcement, an investigative profession, or the criminal underworld encounters dozens of murders in his or her daily life. It's the phenomenon that gives the small Maine town in the TV show MURDER SHE WROTE a higher per-capita homicide rate than Baltimore or Washington. Sometimes the author offers a sort-of rationale for the protagonist's repeated clashes with violent death. Walter Mosley's series protagonist Easy Rawlins, a black man in post-World-War-II southern California, builds a reputation in his community for solving problems people don't trust the police to deal with. Similarly, Barbara Hambly's "free man of color" in antebellum New Orleans, Benjamin January, after unraveling a few mysteries in which he accidentally gets entangled, becomes the person his friends and acquaintances—black, white, and mixed-race—turn to when delicate problems arise. Most "cozy" mystery series, though, simply ask the reader to accept the premise that a chef, a writer, or (as in Susan Conant's series) a dog trainer will trip over a murder or two every few months.

Likewise, we expect the murderer to be revealed as a member of the heroine's circle of acquaintances, not someone from out in left field she's never met. In the classic tradition established by such authors as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, pinning the crime on a character not included in the roster of suspects would be considered unfair to the reader.

The more hard-boiled varieties of murder mysteries, the kind with a higher level of onstage violence, feature another "unrealistic" convention: The hero or heroine usually gets knocked unconscious at least once per book. Yet he or she recovers (sometimes after a credible period of recuperation, sometimes "unrealistically" fast) and soldiers on through adventure after adventure with no sign of permanent brain damage. Given all the recent media publicity about the dangers of concussions (in children's athletic programs, for instance), we have to accept the hero's phenomenal toughness and good luck as part of our genre expectations.

More often than chance would predict, early in the story the protagonist comes across just the bit of specialized or confidential information that she'll later need to solve the case. This example seems to me a borderline case; the effectiveness of suspension of disbelief depends on the author's skill in planting the information in the natural flow of the action. It stretches the bounds of credibility, however, when the amateur detective just happens to overhear a fragment of dialogue that conveys the vital piece of missing information. There was a TV series about a crime-solving priest and nun that, although it was lots of fun, did that kind of thing too often. One of Elizabeth Peters's suspense novels satirizes this device when the heroine sneaks into the villains' lair and eavesdrops on them, lamenting that nobody conveniently says something like, "I will now go to the dungeon and check on our prisoner, who is in the third cell on the right."

In general, any reliance on coincidence to solve the mystery is problematic; an author might be allowed one such incident every now and then, but a little bit of coincidence goes a long way. There can be a fine line between disbelief being suspended and (as Marion Zimmer Bradley used to say) hanged by the neck until dead.

Then there's the direct opposite, Tolkien's "secondary belief," when an author draws the reader so deeply into a fictional world that it comes to life for us. No "suspension" is needed, because we experience the secondary world as a realm that could truly exist on a different plane of reality.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

The Hobbit And The Dragon (Random Remarks)

Last night, I watched "The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug" and I will probably watch it again today, and maybe tomorrow, too.

I enjoyed it very much.

That said, a few things struck me. What strikes me is probably not at all remarkable, and some of my remarks echo comments made by others about the "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy.

1. The X-Box/Nintendo elements. It is very "gamey".  It's over-the-top in the way the fight scenes are prolonged, excessively athletic, creative, fast-moving, and altogether implausible.... but fun to watch.

Whether one is watching Bond, Lone Ranger, Iron Man, LOTR, or The Hobbit every director seems to try to outdo his predecessors in the stunt department in running/riding/driving one mode of travel on top of another mode of travel while fighting and dodging obstacles and missiles.

Does it matter any more if the audience "notices"? 

For a while, in fiction writing, it was considered preferable if the author effaced himself or herself, and did as little as possible to draw attention to the process of narration.  Has the etiquette surrounding the suspension of disbelief changed?

2. Thorin is a hunk. In fact, I counted at least three hunky dwarves. Gimli in LOTR is a decided throw-back. Of course, if some of the dwarves weren't sexually appealing, the romantic elements would not be acceptable in a fast-moving, wide-ranging epic, where the heroine wouldn't have time to notice an ill-favored enemy protagonist's sense of humor or world-changing intellectual stature.

Why, though, in this day and age must there be a romance at all? And, if there must be a romance on an  epic journey saga where all the original fellow travellers were fellows, why shouldn't there be a bromance?

3. The villains are beefed up. It's good entertainment, but in a prequel that is part of a story arc about a rising danger to the world, it seems to me that the villains should not be as numerous or as excessive, and the danger should not be greater in the prequel than it is/they are in the end.  

And, what's with the ubiquitous rotten teeth? Wild wolves may have an occasional broken or missing fang, but the carnivorous --if not cannibal-- diet and the vigorous use of dentition should not produce the tooth rot that all too many villainous Orcs sport, surely.

4. Not to give anything away, but some of the elaborate equipment and machinery used by the dwarves to fight ....well, Smaug...  did not fit well with my understanding of the dwarvish nature, and outraged me so much that I could not go with the flow. Those who have seen 'Desolation Of Smaug" will know what I mean, perhaps.

My final thought is nothing to do with The Hobbit in particular. Just as there are a finite number of notes in sheet music, and therefore a finite number of note combinations, which has led to "sampling" because it is probably impossible not to duplicate a riff or refrain that someone else played before, will we reach a point where all stunts and fight scenes become derivative?

Off topic: Don't forget to change all your online passwords, and to check all your bank and credit card statements more carefully than usual. #Heartbleed. Here's someone else's list of the sites that were most likely affected, so you can prioritize. http://mashable.com/2014/04/09/heartbleed-bug-websites-affected/

Rowena.