Varieties of Marriage

Rereading MARRIAGE, A HISTORY, by Stephanie Coontz (author of the incisive study of so-called “traditional” families in the 50s and 60s, THE WAY WE NEVER WERE), I’m fascinated by the astonishing variety of marriage arrangements described in Chapters 1 and 2. Any romance writer would benefit from reading this book; it reveals so much potential for culture clash and interpersonal conflict springing from marriage customs. The subtitle, HOW LOVE CONQUERED MARRIAGE, emphasizes a major theme of the book, that throughout most of history marriages were formed for economic and political advantages, not to fulfill the partners’ need for love and intimacy. If love grew between spouses, that was a nice bonus, but it would have seemed absurd to base something as important as an alliance between two families on mere emotion. In fact, some cultures were downright suspicious of romantic love between husband and wife, because a right-thinking person owed more loyalty to his or her family of origin than to a spouse.

Believe it or not, there’s one Earth culture that doesn’t have the institution of marriage in any form—the Na people of southwestern China. Adults live in households composed of their brothers and sisters, where the children of the sisters are brought up. Babies are conceived through casual sexual encounters, and a father has no rights or responsibilities in regard to his offspring. Among all the other societies that do have marriage in one form or another, the true “traditional” marriage is, of course, polygamy, specifically polygyny, a family of one husband and several wives. That’s the dominant form marriage has taken in the majority of places throughout history. Polyandry, the marriage of one woman to two or more men, exists but is much rarer, and the co-husbands are usually brothers. We take it for granted that husband and wife live together, but there have been many cultures in which the spouses have separate residences and the husband simply visits his wife and children occasionally. While European traditions assume that inheritance passes through the paternal line, in matrilineal cultures a child belongs to his or her mother’s lineage, and the dominant male figure in the child’s life is the mother’s brother, not the child’s father. (Heinlein uses this model in the future society of FARNHAM’S FREEHOLD. Also, in THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS he portrays a human colony on the Moon where several types of marriage are practiced.) Among Eskimos, “cospousal” arrangements existed in which two couples regularly had sexual relations with each other’s spouses. The community viewed all children of both couples as siblings. Coontz mentions South American tribes that believed a child could have multiple fathers. Any man who had sexual relations with the woman during her pregnancy was deemed a father of the child, and the more fathers, the better. In China, some women were wedded in “ghost marriages,” pledging themselves as wives to dead men. This custom served as a method not only to forge ties between families but also to allow women who didn’t want to marry in the “normal” way to keep some degree of independence. Moreover, some African and Native American societies allowed same-sex marriage, regarding gender roles as more important than biological sex. Socially sanctioned temporary marriages have existed, such as “wife for a day” in some Middle Eastern cultures (the partners have no subsequent ties, except that if a child is born, he or she is counted as legitimate and the father has support obligations) or the trial “year and a day” marriage in some medieval European settings.

In fiction, if a human character should fall in love with a humanoid alien whose world follows one of these customs, imagine the conflicts that could arise. Could love overcome the culture shock? Suppose, for instance, a proposal of marriage was offered and accepted, and only later did the human character discover the union was meant to be temporary. Or suppose a human protagonist brought up with the ideal of monogamy finds that the passionate alien lover already has a spouse and expects the new love to feel perfectly happy about a polygamous union. Romeo and Juliet had smooth prospects by comparison. (Their families belonged to the same culture, socioeconomic level, and religion. If it hadn’t been for that silly feud, the union would have been viewed as ideal.)

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Worldbuilding with Fire And Ice Part 8: Point of View

Here's the link to PART 7 of Worldbuilding with Fire And Ice:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/worldbuilding-with-fire-and-ice-part-7.html

Part 7 has a link to Part 6 which has links to previous parts. 

This is a series of blog posts on developing fiction based on themes about "Fire and Ice" (things that mix explosively) such as religion and politics, or Romance and Science Fiction.  Mind and Emotion.  Fact and Opinion.  Name a pair, any pair that explodes, and examine how they mix microscopically - you'll find there are certain principles of writing craft, structural principles, that once mastered can be used routinely to mix-up any pair of explosives, or pairs of pairs.  This series of posts is about training your subconscious to bring those principles to bear on any mixture of subjects -- any subjects.  Put the conflict into the worldbuilding, then forget about it and just tell your story.  That conflict will drive your plot.  But it won't work for you unless you discipline and train your subconscious.  Some people are born with well trained subconscious creativity, and others have to train for this job -- but the end result will be the same. 

So -- to work!

I saw a tweet on twitter by a blogger who's got a book out that's Science Fiction with Christian characters.  He has some good comments on Amazon from folks who loved this angle, but a few readers objected to mixing Christianity into Science Fiction.

Their objections sounded, to me, just like the objections we get for mixing Romance into Science Fiction. 

You can read his quoted reader comments and blog post, with my replies, here:
http://room-14.com/?p=44

The provocative title is:
Does Faith Belong in Sci-Fi?

And the comments that sparked it:

---------QUOTE-------
“I have nothing against Christian or Christian writers, but when I want a ‘Christian’ story, I will buy one. When I want military Science Fiction, that is what I want.”

“Pages upon pages of God this and God that … Oh GOD cut it out! If I want to be preached to, I’ll go to a sermon. When I read military science fiction, I want a good story, NOT a spiritual rant.”

“The main character had a fixation on the Bible. For no apparent reason he would start thinking about his ‘faith,’ question god’s ‘plan,’ do some soul-searching, then decide he is doing what god ‘wants’ him to do. It seemed like the author went back after writing the book and decided as a christian that there weren’t enough references to his faith, so he crammed in some more.”
----------END QUOTE-----------

Doesn't that sound familiar?  Substitute "Love Conquers All" or "Romance" or "does he or doesn't he?" for "God" and it's the SAME PROBLEM. 

So after I posted what you'd expect of me, all about writing craft techniques and tools being the solution (which is true), I kept on thinking about this problem.

It's a problem of an artist living inside one VIEW of the universe trying to communicate the human-drama experienced by a character living in that artist's view of the universe TO a reader who's living in a different view of the universe.

That's the problem faced by HAPPILY EVER AFTER writers trying to rev up the juices of readers who are convinced by real-life experiences that the very notion of HEA is ridiculous and not even worthy of a Fantasy story.

Then I saw a post by a screenwriter I admire no end (because he works with this problem constantly).  He's author of the novel ALONGSIDE NIGHT which is becoming a film, and the author/producer of a film I absolutely adore LADY MAGDALENE with Nichelle Nichols as a brothel owner in Nevada (where it's legal). 

I think this link will lead to this thread:
http://www.facebook.com/jneilschulman/posts/119631654737632

---------QUOTE----------
J Neil Schulman
Just because I've been convinced by experience God exists doesn't mean I am intellectually any less skeptical or any less epistemologically rigorous than when I was an atheist. It comes down to what one accepts as valid data. I have internal data I can't share -- which is why I don't ask anyone to take my word about it on faith.
--------------END QUOTE--------------

Within minutes, 14 people "liked" that statement, and there were over 70 comments, mostly a back-and-forth between a few people who like to argue (not FIGHT, argue) which I adore, too.  Arguing is almost a lost artform today, especially on Facebook where name-calling has replaced argument. 

Way down that list of answers is my comment:

--------QUOTE------------
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Absolutely valid position, in fact J Neil Schulman may have articulated the only valid position. The entire premise of God is what philosophy professionals call a "non-falsifiable hypothesis" -- and the most intransigent followers of any religion get that intransigence from some kind of very personal, very tailored to their individual identity, EXPERIENCE (i.e. Revelation). The Divine "reveals" itself to individuals. As far as I know, there's only one recorded instance of God speaking directly to an entire Nation, as a Group, in PUBLIC, and that's the one recorded as happening at Mount Sinai. What anyone living today makes of that record -- ah, well, there are so many interpretations!!! Since we're talking about The Infinite, I doubt it's valid to call any of those interpretations "wrong."
----------------END QUOTE---------------

So, as writers looking for a THEME and a MARKET full of people interested in that theme, you can see where I'm going with this FIRE AND ICE series.

Religion, Politics, Philosophy, and the currently dominant branch of Philosophy known today as "Science" -- the "Age of Enlightenment" (I do hope you all know the history of the philosophical movement known as "Enlightenment" (which might be argued is actually the age of "Endarkenment" if you want a dynamite theme to worldbuild from!) -- this is explosive stuff which is center stage today. 

If you're not familiar with it or can't quite remember, try this link to brush up on it or search Wikipedia:

http://www.progressiveliving.org/progressivism_1.htm 

It's all very confusing and full of name-calling.  But as you re-read up on Thomas Paine, keep doing the Science Fiction thinking I've been showing you how to do, and keep asking,

"What if Thomas Paine's disaffected Mormonism is the source of a totally fallacious worldview that's been co-opted and re-purposed by displaced Aristocrats who want their thrones back?" 

There's an alternate universe Romance in that premise question, if you read what's circulating on the internet now not as "fact" but as the new popular mythology that you can re-purpose into a worldbuilding exercise.

Here's the writing technique clue you need to filter all this information through:

Every story that has a Beginning, Middle, and End, has a plot-structure based on two things, the Objective and the Stakes.  What the Hero needs to achieve is the Objective, and what the Hero stands to lose if he/she doesn't achieve it is the Stakes. 

THE OBJECTIVE:

A character looking at his/her world from the Faith point of view (doesn't matter which religion, an alien religion would work just fine), discerns a different objective to the entire point of living a life than a character parsing the world from the agnostic or atheistic point of view.

To create a character who is internally consistent enough to seem "real" to readers of all stripes, you as the writer have to know what that character's take is on the objective of that character's very existence. 

The character DOES NOT NEED TO KNOW, and for verisimilitude, shouldn't actually, consciously, verbalize that objective!  That's the writing craft error that many writers trying to portray a character with Faith often make.

The writer has to choose a Life Objective around which to build a Character, then portray (in show don't tell) a consistent decision making process that always points toward that objective, very clearly, very unambiguously.

Real life is ambiguous in this area; fictional life has to be unambiguous at this level and ambiguous at the level where real life is unambiguous - think of an old fashioned photographic negative.  If you want the negative to print positive, it has to be the reverse of the image you want.  That's what the fiction writer must accomplish - create the negative that the reader will convert to a positive-print.

In real life, we think we hold one life objective sacred, but our actions and decisions actually point at another objective.  We are driven by our subconscious opinion on life's objective, not the conscious one.  The "together" person is one whose conscious and subconscious opinion on the objective of their life is the same.  People with an Internal Conflict have a disparity between conscious and subconscious beliefs about themselves.  This produces Plot Events in our lives that conflict, draw us in opposite directions, muddy the waters, make everything ambiguous.  "Story" is the sequence of bringing those two sets of beliefs into agreement, alignment, relieving that conflict.

The artist's job is to single out one clear thread of that pea-soup of confusion we live in and portray the Problem and it's Resolution in a way that casts light (enlightenment?) on that specific thread. 

Criss-crossing too many threads results in the kind of responses you see on the blog entry, Does Faith Belong in Sci Fi? 

So the writer chooses a philosophical LIFE OBJECTIVE for the character then unambiguously delineates the character's decisions as pointing at that life objective. 

Here are a couple of examples of what I mean by an objective:

One faith might see the object of Life as "Die in such a way as to go to Heaven."

Another faith might see the object of Life as "Live in such a way as to draw the Love of the Divine Creator into this world." 

The reader then can "read" all those character-decisions and, for themselves, FIGURE OUT what that character's life-objective is.  It's a rule in learning and teaching - what you figure out for yourself, you own, you possess, you have a right to USE in ways that benefit yourself as well as others.

Figuring it all out for themselves, readers then feel "empowered" too use this Faith-based view of the universe in whatever way they see fit (including discarding or scoffing at it in public). 

It's not the writer's job as an artist to TELL the reader what's right and what's wrong, what is and what is not.  It is the writer's job as an artist to ASK THE QUESTIONS that the reader, in the confusion of life, can't quite get off the tip of their tongues.

THE STAKES:

The Stakes is the other element that structure's a Plot.

The Stakes work best as a plot element when the character holds the idea verbally, consciously, right up front, visually reinforced.

The Stakes have to be obvious, shown in vivid imagery.  The Objective Of Life is unconscious; The Stakes are conscious.

Now, the Faith Based Character's view of the world is seen through the window of the Faith-formed Objective of a)life in general and b) his/her life in particular (such as a priest may have a Calling - each life may have an assigned Calling).

The Faith Based Character sees what there is to lose in a very different way from the Agnostic or the Atheist, and that contrast gives you amazing power to create conflict in your plots and your stories.

The Faith Based Character sees The Stakes as "Souls" -- and in the case of Romance, Soul-mates, getting the right two people together so they can have the right children at the right time in order to (whatever the stakes are in that religion).  It may be to save the world, save just one soul, save the universe. 

The Faith Based character rarely sees The Stakes as Money, A McMansion, A Corner Office at work, A Promotion. 

The Faith Based character will do "the right thing" even when any reasonable, rational view of the situation tells you that the act will result in massive loss -- of life, of job, of money, of inheritance, of a Good Name (ratting out the drug cartel boss and losing credibility with his minions because of it?).  The Faith Based Character is likely to be the Whistle Blower, the one stubborn Congressman who refuses to vote for a particular bill.

Many times, such actions are viewed as "do the right thing and damn the consequences" -- as utterly unreasonable behavior, or as "brave" behavior because the unacceptable consequences obviously will destroy what the character most values (their marriage, for example).

But that's not it at all, from the Faith Based perspective.

From the Faith Based perspective, the OBJECTIVE is not to amass wealth, prestige, position, material reward, or to live smoothly within "the system."  The Objective of that character, (perhaps unknown to the character) is whatever their Faith holds dear (getting into Heaven, obeying God, whatever it is).

So what appears to the Secular character as irrational and unreasonable behavior is actually rational and reasonable given the OBJECTIVE and the STAKES -- both of which are likely to be Soul-based for the Faith Based Character.

Likewise, to the Faith Based Character the Secular Character's choices and actions appear irrational, unreasonable, stubborn, and above all DOOMED. 

The Faith Based Character does not see material wealth, position, fame, dominance, winning, as "at stake" -- that is liable to be lost if he chooses to do something that would logically cause their loss.

To the Faith Based Character, material wealth, position, etc. are gifts from God which are blessings if properly earned by acting to achieve the Faith's Objective, and curses if acquired by acting against the Faith's Objective.

The Faith Based Character knows he/she can't possibly lose anything of value when acting to achieve the Faith's objective.

Using these parameters in points-of-view, you can block your canvass and begin worldbuilding the background against which your characters must play out this conflict.

Now, put yourself into that mindset, then into the mindset of the Faith Based Character's opponent.  The Opponent can't predict the Faith Based Character's actions without understanding the Faith's Objective -- and the Secular Opponent can't never grasp that, nor can the Faith Based Character explain it because it isn't consciously grasped, it isn't verbalizable.

The Secular Opponent can have no other emotional reaction to the Faith Based Character's (random) successes than utter FEAR, but that fear must remain subconscious because to admit it is to open the door to Faith itself.

Now, put these two Opponents at odds over winning a particular Mate.  It can be a Love Triangle situation, an ex-spouse or live-in situation -- even a Gay Couple where one falls in love with someone of the opposite gender. 

Now suppose these 3 Characters are all running for Public Office, or perhaps up for a major promotion, or vying for a CEO position.

Now suppose they're doing that on another planet where the Faiths are all different from what we have here.

Can you see the endless potential of tossing a really well drawn Faith Based Character into your story?  It alters the paradigm, creates avenues of action that would never be considered by the other characters -- because they're "irrational." 

And if you do your worldbuilding assiduously, you can use a Faith Based Character to shape your plot without demanding that all your readers be of the same faith as your character. 

Mix Religion, Politics and Sexuality at the core of your worldbuilding and your plots explode off the page.  Get your reader gibbering inarticulately over your characters' doings, and they will talk to all their friends about your novel, because it's so outrageous and mystifying.  That will make you a best seller.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

"What To Do Before Your Book Launch" by M J Rose and Randy Susan Meyers

Yesterday, (Saturday October 6th), I had the privilege and pleasure of hosting a discussion with international bestselling author M J Rose and her co-author Randy Susan Meyers on my "Crazy Tuesday On Alternate Saturdays" radio show.

http://pwrtalk.ning.com/profile/RowenaCherry
http://pwrtalk.ning.com/
http://pwrtalk.com/

M J Rose and Randy Susan Meyers have just released a How-To book called "What To Do Before Your Book Launch" which is attracting ecstatic reviews.

What To Do Before Your Book Launch is a guide for authors, covering everything from working with your publisher, to reading in public, to help for publicity and marketing, to using (and misusing) social media, to how to dress for your author photo . . . and far more, including cautionary tales, worksheets, timelines and etiquette tips.

 “A fantastic resource for every writer in search of an audience. Nuts and bolts, elbow grease, and optimism are on every page of this worthwhile guide. Whatever it costs, it’s worth it.”
—Betsy Lerner, author of The Forest for the Trees




I bought my copy on Amazon, because Barnes and Noble didn't have the non-digital version. The ebook price is $5.99 , at the moment the print edition is just over $10.00, which is a probably a special offer for a limited time.

After we chatted about how M J Rose and Randy decided to work together on this project, and how they handled the process of collaborating (writing alternate chapters, with Randy expanding on some of her articles on her blog such as 10 Things To Do.... which I could not locate but I did find MJ's 11 Things NOT To Do When Your Book Launches ) we delved into specific topics and tips.
 
One of the counter-productive "things" that all too many authors do is to annoy internet friends, followers and acquaintances with a constant stream of Buy/Like/Review/Endorse/Vote For/Read my book pitches and pleas. Unlike other sorts of spam, this tactic (according to studies MJ Rose has seen) is only effective 1% of the time.

1% ! I had no idea that it was as bad as that. I'd always assumed that my response to these Friend Spam pitches was atypical, and that I must be an extremely grumpy killjoy, or worse. Apparently not.

MJ Rose makes the point in the above-mentioned 11 Things list, too. I love Thing #8
 8. Don’t expect all your writer friends whose books you have not read and not praised, to read yours and praise it.

"So what," I asked, "does work?"

Graciously and precisely, MJ Rose and Randy told me the secret to using Twitter effectively to promote oneself as an author... and the secret does not involve Tweeting a chapter or two, 140 characters at a time.

Another mistake (I love to learn from other people's mistakes) too many authors make is to put the BUY buttons somewhere discreet on their websites. The end of a sample chapter is not the place. Visitors must be able to find the BUY button before they can count to two. Before their browser crashes.

MJ Rose generously shared a true story of a mistake she made with a photograph of herself that turned off readers so much that they vowed never to purchase anything of hers. It was an attractive and decent shot, too. If you are curious, listen to  10/06/12 M.J. Rose & Randy Susan Myers, What to do
                                                         Before You Launch Your Book
 Find it here. http://pwrtalk.ning.com/page/r-cherry

Randy revealed the answer to one of the greatest mysteries of doing a book reading. How much to read? The answer is.... Nine minutes max. Among the other tips: abridge your scene so there is a beginning, middle and end. Keep the excerpt to action and dialogue. Description doesn't work well at a reading. My show lasted an hour (with breaks every twelve minutes), and contained a lot of good stuff.  This is the first time in years that I've done a show and then actually gone online and purchased my guests' book!

Thanks for listening.
Rowena Cherry
SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

Banned Books Week

This is Banned Books Week:

Banned Books Week

And here’s a page with information about the most frequently challenged books:

Frequently Challenged Books

It’s especially interesting to read the reasons why various books on a list of selected classics have been challenged or banned:

Challenged Classics

I concede that it makes sense to be selective about texts required for student reading in classrooms, because of age-appropriate considerations. But banning a book from public libraries is just wrong. Not to mention that, in many cases, the would-be censors have serious missing-the-point problems. BRAVE NEW WORLD makes promiscuous sex look like fun? No, actually, it makes that look like a pretty pathetic lifestyle for supposedly intelligent adults. In fact, a major theme of the novel is that the characters may be having “fun” but aren’t living fully human lives. Orwell’s 1984—pro-Communist? Huh?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 5

SIDE NOTE: my Vampire Romance novel set on Earth's Moon, (which is nothing at all like the Anita Blake Series) is now, for the first time, available in e-book, almost all formats. 

Here's the new paperback edition:

The Kindle should be linked there. 

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

...we discussed how differently a writer sees a popular news feature story than a reader does.  One lens the writer uses to view Events is the Archetype. 

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

...wriggling in delight at how generously the world responded to the incident of Middle School children reviling a School Bus Monitor then posting her reactions on YouTube.  A fund was started that collected hundreds of thousands of dollars for this elderly woman.  And we ended off with a great big, BUT to consider.

In Part 4 we began to analyze that BUT into something a Romance writer, particularly a PNR writer can use.

-------------QUOTE--------------
I see two sides in this "BUT" --

A) US/THEM -- we reject those children
B) MY GOD/ YOUR GOD -- money solves all problems

...and later ....
Strip this bus incident back to the raw basics, and you see PROPITIATION OF A GOD.  That's the basic archetype revealed (there are a lot of them in the incident; this is the one Romance writers can use.)

The children's behavior resembles the behavior of the Ancient Greek gods torturing a human,  for fun, just because they can.  They knew they could get away with it because of the laws saying the bus monitor couldn't spank them, in any way, physical or metaphorical.

Just like the Ancient Greek gods, the children had more power than they had maturity to handle.  (read Gini Koch's Alien series!)  They have the godly power of YouTube. 

---------END QUOTE----------

We discussed how these children's ill-behavior  -- dare I call them spoiled brats?  Nobody uses that term anymore, but it is so appropriate here!  -- is typical of the behavior of children who have not been well parented. 

Of course, I don't know these children or their parents so I can't say that about these individuals, but as a writer looking for a story springboard, I can definitely say this is exactly the sort of behavior one would expect in children of households with failed parenting. 

I took issue with the media's characterizing this behavior as "bullying" -- that is now a politically correct term, but a misnomer of exactly the same formula that I pointed out in the first two posts in this series on Theme-Worldbuilding Integration. 

The correct descriptive, the accurate term, for this kind of behavior is "spoiled brat." 

The typical spoiled brat is a child who has power over the adults in their life, who knows they won't be punished for anything -- maybe anything short of a certain line.  The spoiled brat can have anything they want without effort.  The spoiled brat has merely to demand something they want and it is theirs by right, by entitlement, and nobody has the right to make them work for it.

The spoiled brat is the Prince who hates his whipping-boy and misbehaves just for the joy of seeing the whipping-boy hurt.

The spoiled brat becomes a monster in the house.  The parents fear the spoiled brat's temper tantrums ever more as the child becomes larger and harder to control.

The parents cringe before the demands of the spoiled brat.

Failed parenting produces monsters worthy of a horror movie.

We're writing Romance here -- Romance about a single parent finally finding a Soul Mate.  Consider the complications to a Romance when the child the single parent is raising is a spoiled brat.  Spoiled brats bully those weaker than they are, and terrorize those stronger than they are.  They attack everything in sight like piranhas after warm meat.

Now consider two single parents each trying to raise a spoiled brat.  The opposite of the Brady Bunch, no?  Fodder for a TV Series, yes? 

This examination of an old news story from June 2012 is not an exercise in futility.  There is a point to all this, big bucks to be made.

If spoiled-brattishness comes from failed parenting, and we have a second, maybe third generation of people whose parents failed to parent them well now raising children of their own then it's no surprise we have an epidemic of bullying and other violent behavior in Middle Schools.  Even childhood obesity may be linked to failed parenting -- a baby (infant even) who gets something stuck in their mouth every time they yell, who gets their every temper tantrum over a toy propitiated with a lollypop, is not going to grow up into the self-control and self-discipline that says "no" to sweets when they experience a twinge of emotional discomfort.

The link between desire and satisfaction is forged in infancy.

The fictioneer's job is to raise desire in their readers and then satisfy that desire. 

A writer who can not delay their own gratification of the need to say something, to show something, to get to the orgasm, is going to cram exposition into the story for self-gratification, not the gratification of their reader.

There is a cluster of cognitive skills that can be acquired only by being well parented.

Delayed gratification of desires is one.  Connected to that is the awareness that others exist, and that there is real, deep, multi-level gratification to be had in gratifying others.

The parent bird who drops a worm into the baby bird's mouth does it for the frisson of pleasure gratifying that baby bird brings, not from altruism but instinct.

The higher mammals have to learn parenting by being parented. (remember the experiment with monkeys we mentioned last week.  Research it if you're not familiar with these studies.)

What's parenting got to do with Romance?

Romance is entirely rooted in the AWARENESS of another person.

A human who hasn't been well parented, at least in some regard, though not necessarily by those who birthed him, CAN be incapable of the awareness of another.

Psychologists use the term validation.  One of the highest forms of personal completion is VALIDATION by another person -- another person who knows what you mean when you say what you feel.  That makes you REAL to yourself in a way nothing else can.

ALIEN ROMANCE -- is all about the oddity of experiencing that VALIDATION not from another human being but from a non-human.  Or vice-verso, of a non-human receiving that validation from a human.

VALIDATION - psychological visibility.  Look it up. 

It is a universal human experience.  The failure of BONDING at birth, the failure of continuity in care-giver in the first couple of years, can disrupt the development of that part of the brain that processes this kind of information. 

As an aside, I once read somewhere that it is the consistence appearance of the caregiver's face over the infant's crib in the first year that develops the part of the brain that recognizes faces. 

All of these features of "humanity" are innate in the human animal, simply in the primate body.

The spoiled brat behavior we witnessed in that school bus monitor video could easily be explained by a failure on this very simple level, the physical body level.  

But humans are ever so much more than that.  The essential feature of humanity is the Soul, and those 12 yr old spoiled brats had human souls that weren't functioning very well either.

The nurturing of the Soul is likewise a function of parenting. 

If a human child is treated only as an animal, given food, clothing, shelter and basic survival skills (in our culture that's reading, writing, using an iPad), the body develops but the Soul doesn't.

The Soul can be walled off from the body, rejected, suppressed, shunned.  The Soul will scream with pain and frustration -- maybe at night, in dreams -- but it can be suppressed and ignored up to a point especially if Parenting validates the process by approving of it, or ignoring the presence of the Soul.  It takes a lot of pure, raw courage to acknowledge and welcome one's own Soul into one's body.  But without that process being completed in adolescence, how can a Soul find a Soul-Mate and a Happily Ever After life? 

How can a person raised with a callous between body and soul ever experience Romance that isn't merely lust?  The body lusts - the Soul Loves.  When the two cooperate, the Universe lights up with delight. 

Children estranged from their Souls would behave like Ancient Greek gods, gratifying whims. 

These spoiled brat/bully/cowardly little tyrants will behave like animals.

Ever seen a flock of ducks pecking the wounded duck to death?  I have.

The "wounded duck" was that bus monitor, and that pack of children tried to peck her to death.  I don't know why because I don't know those people -- even if I did know them, I wouldn't really know why.  One human can't judge another human.

But, a writer can see patterns that others don't notice.

What I see, that may be a big opportunity for some writer, is the rising tide of purely animal-based behavior.  Given my personal philosophy, I parse that as being easily predictable if there has been an erosion of the Soul nurturing dimension of Parenting as a general trend in our society.

If that thesis is correct, then it's not surprising that a huge number of people gave so generously to the victimized school bus monitor. 

You can't generalize human behavior.  We are all unique individuals, though we sometimes move in large packs -- as with the donations to this woman.  Yet I can see that if the thesis of a failure of Soul Parenting being widespread in our society is true, then it may be that Parents who are aware they are failing in Soul Parenting were moved to make up for their failure by making amends to this stranger woman who was a victim of Soul-crippled children just like their own children.

The archetype here is propitiation of the gods.  It is a need to avert disaster (or get something dearly wanted) by putting offerings of food or flowers or whatever (virgin girls into the maw of the volcano) at the feet of the THREAT or the SOURCE.

Many people who haven't studied the mystical schools deeply enough think (possibly because they're taught this in college courses of the Bible as Literature) that the "sacrifices" called for in the Old Testament are exactly like this sort of PROPITIATION exercise.

I'll give you a clue.  They're not.  They're the exact opposite, and one of the things that makes a stark difference between the Ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Persians, Romans, etc and the Jews.  It's an absolutely day/and/night difference, but that's only discernible on the Soul level.  That's why mystical studies are so valuable to the writer of Paranormal Romance.  Love is of the Soul; Lust is of the Body.  Meld them into a cooperative unit, and nothing material can successfully oppose them.

The secret of understanding that difference is in the mis-translation of the words.  "Sacrifice" is the opposite of what the Hebrew word actually means. 

So, now, back to the beginning of this series.  Theme-Worldbuilding Integration.

In the school bus incident, we see cause for euphoric HOPE because "people" rejected the behavior of those children with kindness to their victim.

BUT!!!  (which is where writers get all their crazy ideas -- but!)

Slicing and dicing the kindness offered, we begin to wonder if maybe that out-pouring of kindness and sympathy was actually rooted in the same illness that produced the children's bad behavior.

A lot of people gave money.  That's a huge potential audience for a novel.  Remember in "targeting an audience" -- we learned to study the real world around our target audience and discover what's bugging them, then reduce that to a theme, and use the theme to create a world and characters (in whatever order; doesn't matter.)

So what theme can we extract that would address that readership?

Quote from Part 4:

I see two sides in this "BUT" --

A) US/THEM -- we reject those children
B) MY GOD/ YOUR GOD -- money solves all problems

A) Us/them -- generation gap.  Our children have turned into monsters.  They don't share our values.

B) My God/ Your God (Oh, God! George Burns, 1977)

We live in the 'Age of Enlightenment' where science has become our god.  Whenever we have a problem, we shovel money at science, and it produces a solution. 

Disease: vaccine
Obesity: weight loss drugs, diet/exercise regimens - 6 foods that take inches off you waist

Back at the beginning of the 20th century, (you can look this up; it's true) farmers had an excess of hogs, so a study was commissioned which showed a bacon-and-eggs breakfast was healthy, gave you energy for the day (we still have that "eat a good breakfast" mantra around), and presto bacon sold like hotcakes.  Always check who pays for a scientific study. 

Science has been so successful at solving our everyday problems (as evidenced by lengthening life-span!) that it has become our god.

There is a concerted, well funded effort to prove that the biochemistry of the brain can account for ALL human experience -- to prove that there's no need to postulate a Soul as a real thing to explain human experience of life.  By Occam's Razor, the simplest solution is the right one -- so if you can explain all phenomena (even out of body experiences) without postulating a Soul, then there actually is no such thing as a Soul, which means God does not exist. 

It's all relentlessly logical, and "enlightened" people who've come out of the Dark Ages, and live in the Light of Science rely on logic for their sense of reality. 

There is a philosophy promulgated in the 1700's saying  that Reason works so well, it clearly indicates that God is a silly superstition only the unenlightened (dark minded; stupid or evil) would accept. 

The idea is that one must choose -- Enlightenment and Reason OR Darkness and Superstition. 

This is what I call a False Hobson's Choice.  Read the February 2012 Review Column at

http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2012/

In the Enlightenment view of the universe, (The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine, a lapsed Mormon) Science itself has evolved from Paine's ideas into the god to be propitiated by shoveling money into its maw, just like virgins to the maw of the volcano or the Dragon. 

In that universe, the Soul is not real and thus children don't need their Soul nurtured, just the body.  The yearnings and promptings of the body are the guide to what is "right" and "human rights" actually means "bodily rights," exclusive of Soul Rights.

With each generation, the children become more of a Body and less of a Soul, progressively, a little at a time so nobody notices or complains.  Their god is science and their physical whims.  Fun is behaving like an animal, or herd of animals, and pecking strangers to death, shedding the elderly from the herd for the good of the herd.

In the opposite view of the universe, God is real, makes the Souls and the Reality that cradles them out of Love, and imbues the Soul with the capability to experience Joy, especially the joy of a Soul Mate.

The conflict is "Science As god vs. God is Real"

Themes can be intimate or hugely dramatic:

"Religious Conversion Changes a Person on the Soul Level."

"God is Pissed And She Is Coming!" (an old bumper sticker that says it all)

You can tell up close and personal stories of finding a Soul Mate and thus finding your Soul and seeing you've made monsters of your children.  Like a 12 step program, starting with admitting your complicity in monsterizing your children, you can ignite their Souls and rejoin them to their bodies, see them happily married. 

Or you can tell vast stories, Herman Wouk size stories, such as the story of Moses pulling a nation out of Egypt with 10 miracles, and a Voice speaking the Ten Commandments from a medium-sized mountain, making the hills dance.

The salient feature of the 10 Commandments story is very simple.  It's unique. 

There are a lot of religions in this world where a Prophet rises and says "God told me to tell you."  The gods of many nations only speak to their priests, or to one person at a time like the Greek gods who'd corner someone and torture them for fun. 

Many of the Native American spirits would speak to a favored person only when he was alone in the wilderness.  Even in Australia, the drill is to go AWAY from other people to find the spiritual pathway.  I couldn't generalize about Africa, which is multiplex.  Or India - whoo that's a complicated place. 

But of all the stories around the globe and through time, the only one I know of where the Identity reporting itself as Creator of the Universe actually spoke to more than a million people, a "mixed multitude" (i.e. Jews and Egyptians and other foreigners visiting Egypt who went with the Jews, impressed by the Plagues), spoke publicly to everyone all at the same time, is the 10 Commandments. 

Figure out what you think about this great philosophical debate (spoiled brats or bullies?).  Arrive at your thought by this process I've illustrated, bringing in everything you know about everything, distilling it all down to a single statement, so that thought will be your THEME.  The kernel of what really happened on that bus, and on YouTube, and why so much money was donated, will be your theme. 

Maybe it's, "Children will be children!" or "That woman deserved it; she's ugly."  or "YouTube is Evil for allowing that video to be posted." 

Or maybe it's something huge, like "That bus incident proves that government must control everything. We need a Federal Law against bullying."  Great story in a Political Romance!

Or something small and personal like, "My kids would do something like that.  I have to discipline them harder (or softer, or enroll them in sleep-away school, or whatever -- think Harry Potter for Adults.)

Find your theme, then find a character who believes it, and one who'll die to stamp it out.  Maybe the one who'll die to stamp it out is a kid bent on stamping out parental discipline. 

Pit them against each other in a conflict derived from their different takes on that thematic belief. 

Worldbuild their environment to showcase their issues. 

Toss in a couple more kids, shake don't stir, and write your novel.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Love Notes

My Lovecraftian erotic romance novella "Song from the Abyss" is now available in print in LOVE NOTES, a trade paperback anthology with three other authors:

Love Notes

Alyce, the heroine of "Song from the Abyss," inherits a house that belonged to her eccentric aunt. It turns out the house contains a portal to another dimension. By playing a CD of eerie music, Alyce accidentally opens the portal and summons back to our world her boyfriend who vanished when they were both eighteen. H. P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror" partly inspired the hero, who's not entirely human—and has tentacles.

Earlier, I wrote a more obvious spinoff from "The Dunwich Horror" in a humorous erotic novella, "Tentacles of Love," which asks the question, suppose Wilbur Whateley had been just a nice half-human, half-eldritch-abomination guy who only wanted to find someone to love?

Tentacles of Love

This story is also available in a print anthology, EVEN NAUGHTIER NUPTIALS:

Even Naughtier Nuptials

As would be obvious from these stories and my Amber Quill Press novels FROM THE DARK PLACES (horror with Christian elements) and WINDWALKER'S MATE (paranormal romance), I'm a big fan of Lovecraft's tropes—ancient family secrets, forbidden tomes, and mind-shattering invaders from other dimensions—but not at all in sympathy with his worldview.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 4

Part 1 in this series on Theme-Worldbuilding integration (doing both at once to reduce word-count and increase "pacing" without losing style and atmosphere) is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-1.html

Part 2 in this series was posted September 11, 2012:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integraton-part-2.html


Part 3 in this series was posted Sept. 18, 2012:
http://www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-3.html

Here is a post listing previous posts on Worldbuilding:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/06/worldbuilding-link-list.html

Here is a partial list of posts on this blog about the use of THEME in structuring a novel or screenplay:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/theme-element-giving-and-receiving.html

Again we're in midst of Holiday scheduling here, so I'm not writing this today, but long before "now."  But you may be reading this years later.  Isn't the web wonderful?   

"Last week" we looked at the Romance novels involving children -- young divorcee or widow with children falls in love.  Second time around jitters.  It's a dynamite plot angle.

Statistics show that the children of single parents don't do as well in school or in life as children raised by two parents.  I doubt they've diced up those statistics to discover how badly children of parents who are trapped  in a bad marriage do in school or in life.

Harmony between parents is, I believe, one of those essential ingredients in raising kids to be sensitive, caring, marriageable people -- people who can sustain a pair-bonding situation.

That kind of harmony between parents generally comes from Soul Mating, but not always.  Sometimes Soul Mates just know how to fight in a marriage, but fight "fair."  This can transmit to children the ability to express feelings, especially pain and dissatisfaction, learning to experience themselves without seeing others as the 'cause' of all their miseries (just some.)  Absent such an environment, children can absorb it by reading good Romances about family life. 

So another essential ingredient in raising kids to do well in life is DISCORD between the parents!

How can that be?  Because children don't do as you say, they do as you do.  As children, we absorbed both the image of joy between parents AND the image of how to handle discord, disagreements, compromising, displaced fury and rage bottled up on the job and brought home to be dumped on the spouse.

The stages and steps of emotional maturity that bring us to be able to take advantage of meeting a Soul Mate are rooted in how the parents behave to, at, and with each other.

Last week, we discussed the YouTube video that went viral in June about a group of Middle School kids reviling a school bus monitor. 

Here's a story about it -- I believe the video itself may have been pulled offline:

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-06-20/news/32339643_1_school-bus-cell-phone-video-10-minute-video 

You don't want to watch that video anyway. 

In the news stories referring to the video, the incident was referred to as "bullying."

I don't think that's what it was.  I did see the video. 

To have a bullying incident, the bully-er has to be superior to the bully-ee.  Bullying is an abuse of power -- of being bigger, stronger, having more authority, or options to bring punishment down on someone's head, or blackmail, or get someone fired -- the bully has to have the ability to do harm to the bullyee.

Bullying can be just "crowding" -- a group of kids move in close, touching another kid, trying to provoke a violent response so the bully-ee gets in trouble with the school admin.

It can be passive aggressive, but it's always cowardly by definition. 

We live in a society where the trend is toward valuing safety over heroism, and as a result people who have not grown up modeling themselves on heroic behavior of parents toward dangers respond to threats to their safety by retreating, propitiating, and eventually cowering. 

It doesn't take real danger to draw forth that response, just the threat of danger.  Such a "threat of danger" is what bullying is and the goal is to evoke that cowardly response, the knuckling under, go-along-to-get-along response or the ineffectual lashing out at the irritant.  If there were no probability that a cowardly response could be evoked, there would be almost no bullying behavior because there would be no enticing goal to achieve by bullying. 

In the school bus case, the only element of "bullying" present that I could see was the power of numbers.  There were a lot of kids involved, verbally trashing one adult, attempting to provoke a violent response (such a violent response is the mark of the coward) -- which would have gotten her fired from a job she really needed.

She was the adult in the room, and didn't lash out at them.

Note that martial arts training focuses on controlling the power you gain from learning moves.  Watch The Karate Kid movie series carefully.  That is the training in heroism that erases cowardly traits.  The school bus monitor had mastered those principles, whether she had the physical "moves" or not.  It's a character trait. 


But she didn't handle the whole issue very well, either.  She wasn't able to assert authority of her own, or the authority of the school admin, or the authority of the parents of these children.

Now, that's all I saw.  For why any of this is important or relevant to Theme-Worldbuilding Integration in the Romance Novel, read the previous parts of this series, and the Theme series and the Worldbuilding Series.  This stuff is subtle -- it takes a Wizard!  But this bullying transaction illustrates the issues at the core of a true Romance -- because there is an interface between sexuality and power.  Those bullies on that school bus were adolescents.  Think about that. 

Recall, last week, I pointed out at the end of the piece that the fact this video provoked a project to collect  money for the school bus monitor, and that the amount collected became huge (and the bus monitor just recently acquired control of most of that amount), indicates where you can find a market for a novel based on a theme extracted from the news reports of this incident. 

This is all about targeting your reader, finding what's going on in their real world, reducing that real world to a THEME, then using that theme as a filter to generate a character with that problem. 

You should also use the theme also to filter out extraneous detail and build a world to cradle and present that character (just as a diamond merchant puts her diamonds on black velvet and subtly aims a light from the side, so they sparkle best.)

You want your diamonds, your characters to sparkle enough to catch the eye of the target reader, the people who did or would have donated money to the fund for that school bus monitor.  Those donors hearts went out to that monitor.  They wanted to make a statement repudiating the behavior of those children, and presumably of their parents for raising wild animals instead of people (failing to inculcate heroism in their children; heroes are never bullies).  They wanted to alleviate that woman's pain because they could feel it inside themselves.  THAT is an audience, and therefore a market for emotion-based fiction. 

Against the black velvet background of a schoolbus full of bullies, the monitor's character sparkled and attracted the eye and ignited hearts.  That's what you want your characters to do for your audience.

A question to consider is: "What has gone wrong in our society to produce such children?"

Or conversely, perhaps you don't think those children did anything so seriously horrible as to indicate something wrong with the entire underpinning of society?  Perhaps you can defend them.  That would be PERFECT for one of the Point of View characters in a novel.  Readers on all sides of the question would be steamed up.  Think about readers who are or were bullies -- how would they react to your main character falling in love with a bully? 

To make a novel rather than a short story, you need to argue all sides of this issue.

To do that, you have to reduce the issue to something very precise and clear. 

All of this has to do with analyzing that "BUT" we ended off with in Part 3 of this series.

There is an audience which believes the kids behaved poorly on that bus.  They collected a lot of money for the victim, an outpouring of sympathy and a statement, "We don't belong to a society where people ever WOULD behave the way those children behaved."

That collection of such a huge amount (hundreds of thousands of dollars) disowns those children. 

We do not stand with those children.  We do not condone their behavior.  Don't count us among them.

A bifurcation of society!!  Whoopee!  Fodder for DRAMA - high keyed, Pluto driven drama.

"It takes a village to raise children."  Absolutely, it does.  And there's a well-heeled village that just threw those children out to the wolves.

I see two sides in this "BUT" --

A) US/THEM -- we reject those children
B) MY GOD/ YOUR GOD -- money is my god and it solves all problems your god can't touch

The "guilt" of being the parent generation can be expiated by giving MONEY. Giving MONEY solves all problems, but most especially solves the problem of feeling GUILTY.  How many Romances have foundered on the issue of subconscious or repressed guilt? 

That monetary response might be inadequate.  The Romance Novel that reveals how and why it's inadequate may blow the whole Romance genre out of its ghetto.

Don't forget what we discussed about "misnomers" --

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Theme-Worldbuilding Integraton Part 2: The Use of Misnomers

--- where we discussed how "video-game" is used as a tag, a shorthand, a label for "violence."  It shouldn't be.  As of now, there are some video-games which incorporate reward for players who solve problems with adversaries and lose points for the use of violence.  There will be more video-games driven by Relationship stories. 

As with "Fast Food" there is nothing essentially wrong with "video" or "game" or "video-game." 

A video-game is a medium for delivering a story, entertainment.  It's the prevailing content that has gone bad.  As with "fast food" being a label for grease and sugar, "video-game" has become a label for "only savagery survives." 

There's an underlying cultural reason for this.  It's a long, involved, very philosophical and very boring, a multifaceted issue.

The writer's job is to reduce that tangled mess to something, quick, sweet, enjoyable, and memorable. 

Let me show you my thinking on this issue.

Remember, again, the purpose here is to show you HOW a writer thinks, not what you should or should not think.  Catch the drift of this process, then use it on your own material.  A writer doesn't see what everyone else sees when observing an incident such as the school bus bullying incident. 

Non-writers see that incident on the school bus, dismiss the complexity of the situation by slapping the label "bullying" on it, then to expiate a subconscious sense of guilt, to distance  behavior from that situation, to repudiate it, or for other reasons, they give MONEY.

A writer, chasing the roiling issues of "Poetic Justice" in the Soul-Mate rooted Romance, has to view it all through the question:  "What archetype is behind this behavior?"

Here are some of the posts on Poetic Justice:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/poetic-justice-in-paranormal-romance_22.html

Strip this bus incident back to the raw basics, and you see PROPITIATION OF A GOD.  That's the basic archetype revealed (there are a lot of them in the incident; this is one Romance writers can easily use.)

The children's behavior resembles the behavior of the Ancient Greek gods torturing a human,  for fun, just because they can.  They knew they could get away with it because of the laws saying the bus monitor couldn't spank them, in any way, physical or metaphorical.  They also grew up in a world where it was reasonable to expect retreat before the use of force or to expect more force to ellicit an ineffectual lashing out with force which would cause the victim more harm than it would cause the bullies. 

Just like the Ancient Greek gods, the children had more power than they had maturity to handle.  (read Gini Koch's Alien series!)  These bullies have the godly power of YouTube. 

I have often said here and in my review column that the Ancient Greek gods exhibited the behavior of children raised in a dysfunctional family.  And that's what I see in those children.  I don't see the children themselves,  but I see the parents.  I didn't see news stories about the parents failure as parents -- but I saw a lot decrying the mysterious epidemic of bullying among children.  Very mysterious.

There's plenty of discussion of the failure of schools to prevent the buillies from bullying -- not one word about inculcating heroism in "victims."  Have you ever seen a hero bullied?  Or a coward?  Contrast/compare and there is your novel (or video-game) theme and the world in which that theme produces diamond characters.  How many effective ways do you know for dealing with the attack of a bully?  Did you learn them from seeing your parents "model" them? 

Consider that if you leave the parents out of the mystery of where the bullying epidemic is coming from, you'll never solve it. 

But it would be politically incorrect to hold parents responsible for not-doing what the Law of the Land prohibits them from doing -- owning their children to the point of being held responsible for the damage their children do, even before they've done any damage.  Today children have "legal rights" that preempt the rights a parent needs in order to parent well.  State-raised children are the signature of the Communist regimes, yet we're now headed toward that in the USA, and those children once grown will become your market.  

The parents' hands are tied, just like the bus monitor's hands are tied. (or teachers' hands)  It's not just the threat of being accused of child abuse that ties parents' hands, though.  It is that they have no clue how to parent!  You can't learn it by reading books or taking classes.  You learn it by having been parented.

You've seen the experiments on monkeys.  A baby monkey taken from its mother and raised in a cage will abuse and kill its offspring, not parent the offspring. 

The propitiation element I see is harder to discern because it's removed several steps away from the actual bus incident.

How can you say that the huge amount of money that poured into the fund for the school bus monitor was propitiation paid to the misbehaving children on the bus?

There's deep psychology and sociology behind this long chain of connecting links. 

Think about it, and we'll discuss it next week, but first you must come to your own conclusions.  Remember the objective here is to master a thinking process peculiar to writers -- not to solve some specific real world problem.  Just as dialogue is not speech, but the illusion of speech, so also a fictional world, character or relationship is not a real world, character or relationship but the illusion of them.  We are doing an exercise here designed to train your subconscious to create illusions. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com