Sunday, September 17, 2017
Advertisements You Cannot Trust
Maybe you could. (Put the emphasis wherever you please, if reading aloud.) Perhaps today's consumer of advertisements is less critical and more credulous.
GEICO spoofs medical advertising rather well... maybe too well. I had to look up "gassy girl" to remind myself what is really being advertised. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1rZAFluGZI
Can one believe the bottom line? Or is it an example of misdirection? That is, "Look how tricky those medical advertisements and claims are. We're telling you that they are bad, so we must be accurate in our own claims..."
(This, by the way, passes for a review or commentary on advertisements IMHO.)
While searching for my all-time favorite advertisement (featuring a hunk on a bicycle), I came across this about lies advertisements tell you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A74bJS-orlo
Apparently, calling bad breath "halitosis" makes it sound more serious.
Perhaps acronyms have the same effect. A lot of marketing companies, very seriously, tell you the initials of your complaint. Like "body odor" becomes a far more urgent problem if you learn that it is also called "B.O."
A new wrinkle in the law is that Federal Trade Commission (or FTC) lawsuits may now be aimed at the advertising agencies that create deceptive advertisements, where those adverts are not (not) based on claims made to them for their use by the product manufacturer.
Legal blogger John C Greiner for Graydon Head & Ritchey LLP writes about an extended format for an advertisement that--I infer-- was not recognizable as an infomercial, and in which a medical doctor is alleged to have used his status as a medical doctor to recommend a product that he allegedly never studied (or never studied more critically than the alleged script that he was allegedly paid to repeat.)
Read more at:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=509f30fe-2944-42bf-b0f4-29943a6e3933
Don't be thrown by "Pepe The Frog". The advertising article is there.
There is also commentary at
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=f8881083-8199-4805-97da-d8a2526d8b1das analysed by David O. Klein of Klein Moynihan Turco LLP
Authors are their own "product manufacturers" and their own "marketers". Usually. Some have a publicist.
Authors advertise. They can buy "keywords" such as the names of more famous authors, to suggest that their books might appeal to fans of the more famous authors. If I wanted to do so, I could add "labels" to this passage of prose such as "bad breath", "flatulence", "body odor", "irritable bowels", "aliens"... ( I am not doing so, but in the interests of science, if you were lured here by the appearance of those free "key" words, please leave a polite comment about how and why you were misdirected here).
I'm not sure that the FTC is at all likely to take an interest in literature, or in the honest marketing of it. However, if you will pardon the pun, it's always good to know which way the wind blows.
On that happy note....
All the best,
Rowena Cherry
Cookies We Do
All the best,
Rowena Cherry
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Mundane Psionics
Many characters in fantasy and science fiction possess psychic superpowers. They can read thoughts, view events at a distance or (maybe by touching an object) in the past, or see the spirits of the dead. In a sense, we don't have to fantasize about having such abilities, because we already do, sort of. Through writing, we can transmit our thoughts directly into the minds of other people we'll never meet face-to-face. While reading, we receive the thoughts of the writers, even if they died centuries ago. Film allows us to travel in time, in that it shows us scenes from the past. We can even see dead people in the prime of life. Through recording technology, we hear their voices.
Psychologist Steven Pinker, in "The Seven Words You Can't Say on Television" (a chapter in his book THE STUFF OF THOUGHT), speculates on why taboo words—profanity and obscenity—have been forbidden or restricted in most human cultures. Often against our will, "dirty" words force images into our minds that we may not want to entertain. Unlike eyes, ears don't have "earlids" to shut out objectionable sounds spoken by other people. Also, as he points out, "understanding the meaning of a word is automatic"; "once a word is seen or heard we are incapable of treating it as a squiggle or noise but reflexively look it up in memory and respond to its meaning." Language equals thought control. The official Newspeak dialect in Orwell's 1984 strives to make heretical thoughts literally "unthinkable"—at least as far as "thought is dependent on language."
Many fantasy novels postulate that magic depends on a special, often secret language. In one of my favorite series, Diane Duane's Young Wizards stories, learning wizardry consists mainly of mastering the Speech, the universal language of reality understood by all creatures, including those we ordinarily think of as inanimate. A wizard affects the world by using the Speech to persuade an object, creature, or system to change. However, some speech acts in the mundane world also alter reality. Enactive speech not only describes an event but makes it happen, e.g. taking an oath of office or uttering the words, "I now pronounce you husband and wife."
A prayer in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer titled "For Those Who Influence Public Opinion" makes this petition: "Direct, in our time, we pray, those who speak where many listen and write what many read, that they may do their part in making the heart of this people wise, its mind sound, and its will righteous." A heavy responsibility for authors, especially in this divisive, volatile era!
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's CryptTuesday, September 12, 2017
Reviews 33 - Sime~Gen Seen From Outside
Reviews 33 - Sime~Gen Seen From Outside
I found this review of the first book in the Clear Springs Trilogy by Mary Lou Mendum -- a Sime~Gen Series trilogy - on Facebook and Amazon on June 29, 2017.The second in the trilogy will likely be available soon, so I thought this review from the outside -- by someone who has not been writing Sime~Gen fanfic -- could be useful context for writers who have been following my commentary on what goes on inside a writer's mind.
We have explored how to take a news item, mull it over, turn it into questions, look at it from outside the framework of your own culture -- maybe from all human cultures -- and cast the resulting idea into a Theme you can use to build the World for an Alien Romance.
This thinking process is common to science fiction, and turns up in all the genres. But it does not always produce something that resonates with a readership. When you do hit a readership, sometimes you don't know it for decades to come.
We have also discussed how you know if you're writing a "classic"
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-do-you-know-if-youve-written.html
When a work stands the test of time, it can become a Classic. If you want to write a Classic, you need to study Classics, but also the writers and their processes that produced that "Idea." You can't use another writer's process, but you can use your understanding of their process to invent a process of your own -- and test it in the marketplace of Ideas.
Here is a view of the end result of the Sime~Gen Process by someone who was not involved in it.
He has given permission to post this review here.
-----------Review By Joseph Baneth Allen----------
Just finished reading "A Change of Tactics: A Sime~Gen Novel -Clear Spring Chronicles #1" by Mary Lou Mendum, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, and Jean Lorrah released by Wildside Press.
I was delighted when Wildeside Press began reprinting the classic [previously published] Sime-Gen novels by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, and Jean Lorrah. along with the previously unpublished ones that Jacqueline and Jean had written. Due to the success in sales of the reprints and previously unpublished Sime-Gen novels, Wildside Press has rather smartly decided to publish more new Sime-Gen novels, of which "A Change of Tactics: A Sime~Gen Novel -Clear Spring Chronicles #1" is hopefully the first in a long line of original Sime-Gen novels.
Mary Lou Mendum first began writing her Clear Springs Chronicles, which highlight the adventures of Tecton Donor Den Milnan and his cousin First Level Channel Rital Madz, in the Sime-Gen Fanzine AMBROV ZEOR back in 1990.
So when Wildeside Press wanted a new Sime-Gen Novel, Jacqueline asked Mary Lou if she wanted to expand her first two stories about how Den and Rital arrived in Clear Spring to expedite/herald a technology exchange of Selyn Batteries.
Now I may be wrong in this, but I do believe that it was Jacqueline Lichtenberg who first broke ground in the publishing industry by not only allowing fan fiction of her universe to thrive - but also allowing another writer, Jean Lorrah to co-write joint and solo novels in the Sime-Gen series. There is a strong argument to be made that shared-world novels and anthologies flourished because of her willingness to take a step, at that time, I don't recall any other author and/or publisher doing. Without Jacqueline Lichtenberg paving the way, I strongly suspect that the co-written novels of Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and other science fiction writers would have gotten off the drawing board. Success does tend to encourage more success.
"A Change of Tactics" examines who to adapt to the dual new situations of outright hatred and violence, and the willingness to chuck established procedure out the window when it doesn't work. It also challenges Den's and Rital's long traditional beliefs about how to reach out to people who have to worry about offending their neighbors. It also looks unflinching at religious prejudice and how to effectively combat it - something the Jacksonville Community Alliance could definitely benefit from.
How Den confronts and fights against the religious prejudice of Reverend Sinth and his followers is something rarely portrayed in science fiction - thought more in fantasy novels.
I am eagerly looking forward to the next Clear Spring Chronicle.
Highly Recommended!
Five Stars!
-----------end Review---------------
And don't forget, Book 13 in this Series is an anthology of stories by various writers, including Mary Lou Mendum.
Sunday, September 10, 2017
Read The Fine Print
This week, one hundred and forty three million Americans learned that a site that collects private information without consent had been hacked. A few days before the announcement was released, the same company (to the best of my belief) started television advertising of its own proprietary service to protect its paying subscribers from identity theft.
Following the announced breach, potential users of the site are also being encouraged to register with the site in order to discover whether or not their own information was part of the leak.
If you set up an account with that service, you explicitly agree that you will not take part in a class action lawsuit against that site.
How's that? (!!!)
Talking of fine print, The Manward Press (and this does look like an advertisement) suggests that every cellphone user should read the fine print. There's more. And more.
Here's a site with a short cut to the fine print you may never have noticed.
http://showthefineprint.org
And finally, alien romance publishers (in fact, almost all book publishers) make use of fine print, too, and most book "users" never notice it. It's called the front matter, and it is on the first or second or third page, and it informs readers who owns the copyright of the work, and it forbids copying, publishing, distributing the work without written permission from the copyright owner.
All the best,
Rowena Cherry
Thursday, September 07, 2017
Surplus of Time
Occasionally I read a humorous manga series called MISS KOBAYASHI'S DRAGON MAID. The heroine saves the life of a dragon who, in gratitude, decides to take human form and become the heroine's personal maid. In a recent issue, another dragon who happens to be visiting remarks that dragons have a "surplus of time" because of their long lives. Therefore, to him, consorting with humans and exploring their culture is merely a "whim."
Paranormal romance often includes friendships and romantic attachments between human characters and long-lived or immortal ones. Often one side effect of the extreme disparity of the characters' lifespans is skimmed over or left unmentioned: Can somebody such as a vampire, a "Highlander" immortal, a pagan deity, or a very long-lived extraterrestrial truly "love" a human partner in the sense ordinary mortals understand that emotion? The immortal or long-lived person may look upon the human lover as more like a pet, particularly since the immortal has lived through a vast realm of experience unknown to the short-lived partner.
With proper care, a domestic rabbit may live eight to twelve years, a ferret five to nine. Some large dogs typically don't live longer than nine or ten years. Of course, human pet owners love their dogs, rabbits, or ferrets, but can one have the same relationship with a creature whose lifespan is about a tenth or less of one's own as with a human partner? Likewise, an immortal may cherish his or her human lover yet realize in the back or his or her mind that the relationship will last a small fraction of the immortal's lifetime. After the human "pet's" death, the love relationship and the sadness at its loss will eventually fade to a wistful memory.
I've encountered quite a few books and movies that highlight the problem of a human lover's growing old while the nonhuman partner remains eternally youthful. Fewer works seem to tackle the more basic issue of the emotional effect widely different lifespans would have on such a relationship. The commitment required of the human partner must inevitably be deeper than that offered by the nonhuman character. Once in a while I have come across a vampire romance in which the human character doesn't want to be transformed, and the vampire's attitude is something like, "I can spare a mere sixty or seventy years to make you happy." How would a human lover feel about being viewed in those terms?
Of course, in a story that tackles this issue, the long-lived hero or heroine would have to be the exception, a character who somehow comes to value his or her human partner as more than a pet. What elements in a cross-species relationship could draw this character outside the normal comfort zone of his or her kind?
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's CryptTuesday, September 05, 2017
Depiction Part 32 - Depicting Brain To Computer Links - Online Bullying Prevention
Saturday, September 02, 2017
'Ware What You Do With That Tee
Some authors take some of their own best quotes from their novels, apply them to T-shirts, and either sell them, or simply have friends, family and street teams wear them for publicity.
In such cases, there is probably some small print, attributing the source of the quote to the book and author.
It wouldn't be an advertisement otherwise. If you are an alien romance author, (or any genre of author), you might be interested in whether or not you could trademark or copyright the quotes.
Probably not. I have trademarked a name of a blog, but I doubt that I could trademark a snarky phrase uttered by one of my alien alpha males.
If you are a fan, you might be interested in whether you could sell T-shirts decorated with quotes from your favorite authors' books, or with your favorite celebrity's Tweets.
Possibly so, but it would be classy--and safe-- to seek permission.
However, do not take a copyrighted work such as a photograph or painting (by someone else), and apply it to a T-shirt or other object without permission. Over the years I have purchased non-exclusive, limited rights to use photographs of attractive male model's body parts (usually their chests and adjacent muscles) for use as cover art. Often, the waivers and licenses specifically forbid me to use the images on mugs and tote bags and such swag.
I'd like to recommend just two legal blog articles about T-shirts and copyright.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=0ec9dfdb-aaab-466f-b7a3-ccd2de97a8e2
The blogging lawyers of Morrison & Foerster LLP , Mona Fang and John F. Delaney write about Zazzle's T-Shirt woes (Zazzle Fizzles: Website Operator Denied Copyright Safe Harbor Protection For Its Sale Of Physical Products Featuring User-Generated Images).
The title does not say it all. Their article contains some very eloquent and clear explanation of how the judges deliberated and reasoned, and what was and was not an issue.
The copyright protection or lack thereof of someone else's Tweet, even a lucrative one, is examined under "A Tee, A Tweet And Frank Ocean" by Tim Buckley of Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman PC.
http://www.cll.com/newsroom-publications-172377
Tim Buckley's sound legal advice is that it would be better to seek permission before monetizing someone else's Tweet..
My entirely amateur view is that lawsuits are very expensive, lawyers have to be paid no matter who wins, and not every court awards legal fees to the winner. Moreover, Tweets go global, and laws in Europe are kinder to copyright owners. IMHO, the alleged Tweet-snagger should give credit to the Tweeter on her website.
Happy Labor Day!
Rowena Cherry
Thursday, August 31, 2017
Food Production of the Future
Here's an article about tabletop greenhouses controlled by a computer program:
A Byte to EatFood computers "use up to 90 percent less water than traditional agriculture and can help reduce food waste." The ones built in the class showcased in this article are the size of a moving box and very cheap—the "computer" part of the system costs about $30.00.
These devices are too small, of course, to feed a household. However, they could allow people without yards or gardens to supplement their diets with home-grown vegetables. Furthermore, the design can be scaled up to the size of a warehouse.
In an essay written several decades ago, Isaac Asimov calculated how long it would take for the Earth to reach maximum sustainable population at the then-current rate of reproduction. In a surprisingly few centuries, he figured, the entire surface of the planet would reach the population density of Manhattan at noon on a weekday. (I don't remember whether this estimate includes paving over the oceans.) Setting aside the practical fact that this end point will never be reached, because societies would collapse long before then, how would all those people living in one continuous urban sprawl be fed? Agriculture on almost every rooftop would be needed. Asimov visualized giant algae vats producing the raw material for nutritive substances. The society of Harry Harrison's 1966 novel MAKE ROOM, MAKE ROOM, set in 1999, feeds the overcrowded planet with a protein substance called Soylent Green. (Interestingly, Harrison predicts this desperate condition in a world with 7 billion people. Global population today measures about 7.5 billion, and we're nowhere near those dire straits. Maybe there's hope.) Contrary to the movie (in which the authorities falsely claim that the product's base ingredient is plankton), Soylent Green in the book isn't "people." Thoughtful consideration makes it obvious that relying on cannibalism to feed everybody would make little sense. It's not efficient to sustain human livestock on food that people could eat directly. Any consumption of human meat would have to be sporadic and opportunistic, not the main source of nourishment. In the novel, Soylent Green is made of soybeans and lentils, a highly nutritious combination of proteins. Still, most likely, the majority of people would prefer "real food" if it could be cultivated in such an environment. And inexpensive computerized growing units like those in the tabletop greenhouse project could be part of the solution to the problem.
Not that I'd want to live in a world like that. As much as I would miss the modern conveniences I'm very attached to, I would almost prefer the low-tech future of S. M. Stirling's "Emberverse" series (beginning with DIES THE FIRE), whose inhabitants enjoy fresh, locally farmed foods as one compensation for the high-tech marvels they've lost.
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's CryptTuesday, August 29, 2017
Theme-Character Integration - Part 10 - Popping The Question by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Previous parts to this series are indexed at:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/index-to-theme-character-integration.html
The topic of marriage is pretty much outside the Romance Genre domain of definition. However, Robert A. Heinlein often depicted marriages as a stabilizing influence and a powerful adjunct to Adventure.
He also had an ever broadening definition of marriage -- using line-marriage and various forms of open marriage in his later works, novels that became more famous and more widely read than science fiction.
That widening of the audience that Heinlein achieved for science fiction is what we are after in this blog about elevating the prestige of Science Fiction Romance.
Heinlein worked during a time when the social fabric was morphing beneath our feet, women's lib on the rise and divorce rate soaring. Working women had to wear suits, many pants-suits and skirt-suits were seen as a sell-out).
It is difficult for today's Romance audience to conceptualize why that dress code was important or what the current rash of "sexual harassment" claims is all about. Of course, if you have been targeted by such harassment, you may think you know what it is about. Unfortunately, many who are targeted become so emotionally entangled in the gut-deep offense that the bigger picture of what it is about escapes.
That bigger picture is what the Literary Field of Science Fiction Romance can bring to the international conversation on human rights, spotlight it, bring it into focus, create language (Heinlein's "Grok" is still understood), and establish a new domain of discourse.
In worldbuilding for a Science Fiction novel, Poul Anderson taught us (and illustrated with all his magnificent novels) how to start with the biology of an Earth species, and extrapolate how that biology might work in an Intelligent Sentient species - from another world, another ecological line of development. Or it could work for an Alternate Earth where some asteroid strike or solar low-point diverted evolution into another channel.
In Romance Genre, the focus is on a couple or triad, who have to settle into a Relationship for the purpose of building a life -- of laying the foundation for a Happily Ever After. But at the moment when they meet and become enamored -- stuck on each other -- they don't care a whit for building anything. The whole focus is on this brand new feeling that is pre-empting all the fixed parameters of their Self Images.
Romance, when it strikes out of the blue, when it sweeps the couple off their feet (or just sweeps one off of feet, leaving the other in a practical frame of mind), blurs any ability to judge another person, to draw a bead on that other's Personality.
When "In Love" we bind our Identity to the Image of another person, an image that is mostly our own imagination.
Those who have trained and practiced imagining, judging Character, connecting observed actions with the motivations that prompt actions, may have an edge during the onset of a Romance, before surrendering to the sweeping dissolve and reform process of becoming another person because of this binding Bond.
Others, who have not been raised to judge others' Character with objective precision, are more likely to mistake Romance for Love -- two very different personal experiences.
We live in a culture where children are taught there is no objective reality, and that objective judgement of people, values, cultures, is impossible.
During the decades between Heinlein's peak sales, and now, we have seen a massive shift in Thematic emphasis in Romance Genre.
Since there are no objective touchstones by which to judge the people you meet, the only way to evaluate where a new person fits into your life is by how you respond emotionally to that person. The only thing that matters is subjective emotion because there is no such thing as objective reality, objective values, or any way to judge "Art" objectively.
That idea is a THEME.
Subjective judgement, emotional reaction, is the surest guide to finding a Mate who can build a Happily Ever After with you.
For decades, our whole society has been using that premise, that subjective judgement is the surest possible guide, to decide whether to marry this or that person, or not to marry at all, or to live-with for "a while" and then decide whether to marry.
Meanwhile, the divorce rate soars ever higher and the first-marriage rate drops (and the birth rate in the USA drops). Nobody seems to wonder, the way science fiction writers wonder, if perhaps something in our assumptions might be incorrect.
Science is done with the type of thinking that is always questioning assumptions, questioning unspoken and unconscious assumptions as well as assumptions defined into an equation.
When you blend Science with Romance, you get Science Fiction Romance.
Romance Genre never questions assumptions, especially assumptions about emotions, or about the fundamental structure of reality.
Science Fiction Genre always questions every assumption about fundamental structure, unseen under Reality (or even the very existence of Reality.)
Science fiction is done by applying the thought-processes that produce hard science with the artistic process that produces a Life Well Lived.
That artistic process works with the theory that there exists such a thing as the Soul, and Soul Mates. Science can't prove the existence of the Soul or for that matter, the existence of existence.
So the blend producing science fiction romance is an oil-and-water type mixture, an emulsion, not a solution.
Working that blend, you come to the question, "Well, where do Souls come from, and how do you figure out whether this person is your soul mate?"
And the answer, "You don't figure it out, you FEEL it."
What is it that you FEEL?
How do you identify it or explain it to someone who has never been struck by love at first sight?
One touchstone is that this special person makes you perform to your own highest standards of moral and ethical precision -- or possibly of productivity, of grit and determination and pure heroism. This special person brings out the best in you, or perhaps even better than you ever thought you could be.
And after the dust settles, you are happy that you are who you are, happy and proud to be you.
So a Soul Mate coupling is about FEELINGS.
Romance Genre has been selling big time using the "steamy" Romance premise that sexual arousal and emotional imagination about "who" this other person actually is, is the best way to judge whether you've found your Soul Mate and a path to the Happily Ever After.
One reason the general public no longer conceptualizes a "Happily Ever After" life as "real" -- as possible, plausible or even desirable -- is the soaring divorce rate, the shattered-shambles divorce leaves behind especially when there are children.
Everyone knows someone who has an "ex" -- and everyone knows grown people who were children of a divorced couple, very possibly remarried to other people, and very possibly divorced again.
The stable, firm and reliable "nuclear family" has disintegrated.
That's a scientific fact - we have all seen the statistics.
What many Romance readers today don't know is that it was not always that way, and that this phenomenon is not the only possible way for human society to be organized.
Today's readers may have read that nuclear families used to exist, but they have no personal experience of such a thing. So it's not real to them. It's a fantasy.
Historically, there is a good reason that England overthrew the law preventing divorce. A miserable and incompatible couple does not raise self-confident, innovative and productive children. A bad marriage is bad for society.
Historically, there is a good reason that despite legal divorce, the U.S.A. maintained stable marriages (even somewhat miserable ones) for a very long time. One big component was the way a female was rendered dependent on the male for her living, and her existence, and her children's future.
Once economic independence became common for women, divorce rates rose.
You'd expect that getting couples properly matched in marriages would have become the norm, and divorce rates would be close to zero by now. Not so.
We've talked enough about arranged marriages here, and we've all read any number of Romances involving both good and bad arranged marriages. Some systems have a better success rate than others. But they produce a preponderance of life-long marriages in societies where divorce is unthinkable if not illegal. If women don't hold good jobs, they are stuck in misery.
One can argue that being free to leave at any time also allows an emotional freedom that cements a nuclear family together. If a human feels trapped, that human (male or female) with FIGHT to get out of the trap.
So having free alternatives is a key to a Happily Ever After marriage.
Here is a wonderful article on the relationship between health and marriage, scanning some scientific investigations into statistics, and reporting on following individuals health for many years. The results are not clear. Marriage doesn't guarantee better health, and being single doesn't guarantee better health either. But the research is a treasure trove of story material.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2017/jun/07/is-marriage-good-for-your-health-it-depends-who-youre-married-to
The title says it all:
------------
Is marriage good for your health? It depends who you’re married to
New research has found being married has protective health effects – unless it doesn’t
-----------
What are you doing, why are you doing it, and what is your goal? What are your chances of achieving that goal by staying in the marriage vs. leaving the marriage?
Humans are happier when doing things voluntarily rather than being forced, coerced, tricked, or manipulated. Even if the thing being done is actually beneficial to the human individual, if it is in any way coerced, it turns toxic.
So one pervading theme in the modern Romance Novel is, "If I feel like having sex with this person, there's no sense fighting it. It is impossible to control feelings, and it is unhealthy to try."
One pervading theme in modern science fiction is, "If I see a mistake most people are making, I don't have to make that mistake myself." That is the theme of the Hero, the maverick, the Adventurer.
So to get science fiction romance from these two themes, you need two Characters with contrasting views.
Marriage and the Happily Ever After have become the subject of legitimate scientific investigation.
So one Character might believe that instant, irresistible sexual arousal is the only reliable sign you have found a Soul Mate who can build a Happily Ever After life with you.
The other Character might believe that the goal of the Happily Ever After Life can be achieved only by a stable, bound, solid marriage and nuclear and extended family structure.
Now, take two Scientific Researchers, each with well-funded projects examining statistics, interviewing people, gathering medical records on them, following individuals through Life.
They each get papers published, and they are BOTH being considered for a Nobel Prize (or whatever the top in their field is), and they become rivals advocating their theories, intent on proving their theory so that society will change and conform to their Ideals. They want to FIX THE WORLD by demonstrating the path to the HEA for Everyone.
They meet for the first time at a cocktail party (or some Event) having read each others' research, having their minds full of refutations of the flimsy science behind the other person's paper.
Now what happens? What happens is the PLOT, and that plot must be integrated (fabricated from) with the theme.
The Characters, who they are and where they are in Life, and career, whether they have an "Ex" and children, all the Identity parameters go into fabricating the Plot, the things they do and the consequences of those deeds prompting more actions.
This series is about Theme-Character integration -- and you will note that the moment you have Characters whose Identify is fabricated from the Theme, you suddenly can think of dozens of plot events, and a wide variety of ways that Events might unfold.
Ponder the diverse and inconclusive (even confusing) results of the scientific investigation of marriage -- find these statistical assumptions that may be behind this research and what systemic flaws might be there. Create two additional experiments, statistical analyses, that your Characters might execute -- and then pit them against each other.
Here is the index to theme-plot-character integration:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/index-to-theme-plot-character.html
Maybe instead of being up for the same Prize, they start their Epic Rivalry at the point where they are seeking funding, or seeking a Teaching Assistance-ship under the same Professor. All that is Character -- and within that Character is the Theme and within the Theme is the Plot.
The Story is all about what their Conflict and their Romance do to change each of them, to forge them into a lifelong and successful partnership.
One signature of success in marriage is revealed in that Article I pointed you to above -- increased HEALTH. The physical body, relieved of stress, performs better.
Thus at work you get more promotions because you don't "fly off the handle" so easily and produce precision work more reliably.
With children, you are more consistent day to day instead of confusing them with your eruptions of temper, so they grow up to be more steady adults.
There are a lot of documented similarities between human behavior and animal behavior. Perhaps the most revealing is in the way our pets behave.
Here is an article about dog behavior written by a Veterinarian who has seen individual humans owning successive generations of dogs, and has noted how human habitual behavior toward a dog creates dog behavior problems.
The same habitual human behaviors that prompt dog misbehavior also prompt children's misbehavior. Each child or dog personality reacts differently to the same human behavior.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/pets/news-features/dog-behaviour-problems-ten-common-causes/
Here are the headings for this article on dogs
---------quote-------
1. Some dogs have a genetic tendency to behave badly
2. Poorly socialised pups turn into badly behaved adult dogs
3. Dogs that are not trained enough cannot learn to be well behaved
4. Old fashioned, dominance-based training doesn’t work
5. Negative experiences leave dogs with long lasting emotional memories
6. Testosterone drives aggression
7. Treating dogs like people doesn’t work
8. Dogs without boundaries are more likely to behave badly
9. Insufficient exercise leads to frustrated dogs that behave badly
10. Trying to solve dog behaviour problems on your own is unlikely to succeed
----------end quote---------
Convert that to children's behavior problems to generate conflict. You can use a pet's behavior to reveal hidden Character traits.
Back to the article on marriage research:
And in old age, you survive health challenges and adjust together -- you just plain live longer, healthier lives.
Is that what people have in mind when they pop the question? Do your characters choose a person to be 90 years old with? Or do they propose marriage because you feel a certain way at that moment?
Stress is the killer. A good marriage relieves stress. A not-so-wonderful marriage maintains dangerous stress levels.
What will the next brand new scientific discovery be that proves the Ancient Wisdom modern society has thrown out with such contempt?
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Monopolizing Other People's Creative Works
When motor vehicles were invented, horses, horse-drawn vehicles (and the means to motivate carriage horses to move) were rendered obsolete because of the convenience and virtues of the new, replacement vehicles (which might need to be cranked, but which did not respond to being whipped).
The car makers did not forcibly shackle the horses and buggies to motorized skates. Nor did they subject existing horse, buggy, and passengers to being dematerialized and rematerialized at their destination, as in "Beam Me Up, Scotty."
"Beaming Up" (or Down) is what Big Tech does when it digitizes creative works or performances. Congress ought to protect "creators" from their works being beamed hither and thither without the AFFIRMATIVE permission of the creators (opt-in) and without payment that is satisfactory to the creators and copyright owners.
In an interesting, and lengthy (and slow-to-get-to-the-good-stuff) article, the New Yorker discusses
the impoverished death of a musician, attributing the impoverishment to Big Tech which makes fortunes for "disruptors" at the expense of the "creators" of the content they hijack and publish and distribute.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/28/who-owns-the-internet
Also discussing the failures of the DMCA to protect creators from creative Big Tech exploitation and "permissionless innovation" is a discussion of digital resale. Remember, if digital music files are allowed to be resold, Amazon has a patent (and a web page all ready) for the digital resale of ebooks.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/appeals-court-grapples-digital-files-business-selling-used-songs-1031629
Also, if the bankrupt ReDigi could be sold, which of the Dark Lords would buy it?
All the best,
Rowena Beaumont Cherry