Showing posts with label Headlines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Headlines. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

How to Use Tarot and Astrology in Science Fiction Series Part 6 - Confronting Change

How to Use Tarot and Astrology in Science Fiction Series
Part 6
Confronting Change

Previous parts in How to Use Tarot and Astrology in Science Fiction Series are indexed at the bottom of the index post about Astrology

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

In 2020, we are up against the forces of change focused on governments, country sovereignty, borders being moved, annexation of lands, ousting of Kings, plus the looming promise of major shifts in how management decisions are made -- Big Data plus Artificial Intelligence.

Privacy seems gone as facial recognition (however flawed) is deployed.  The recent Coronavirus mutation brought scenes of people marching down airport corridors, outlined by a camera that revealed their body temperature (looking for those running a fever).

The world has already changed -- most haven't noticed it yet.

Humans are averse to change.  Just ask a two year old!

Humans want "the world" to function the way they think it does.

On the other hand, people also want to change the world to make it function the way they want it to function, not as they think it does right now.

On the third hand, people change their opinions throughout a lifetime.

In Part 5 of this series, we looked at "The Story of a Life" -- biography.

The closer a fictional narrative resembles the form and shape of a real life, the more informative and thought-provoking it will be for readers.

The Generational Novel or Series, or Vampire Romance, novels with settings that span long story-arcs, centuries in Time, can put the reader's current world into a new perspective, suggesting new solutions to a reader in a quandary about their current life.

The narrative selected and spun by current news media is not the only narrative in dynamic play at any given moment because generations overlap, interpenetrate, and blend through transitions.

2020 is one of those blending times -- and it could be this whole decade that reveals the swirling dynamic change.

People living through this see it from the perspective of their own generation, and each sees a portion of the truth (like the Blind Men And The Elephant -- though I'd expect the Blind Women and the Elephant to reveal a different story).

Right now, the media portrait of the world appears to be ramming many countries, including the USA, into civil war or some semblance of blood in the streets.

People living through this, people who are your audience looking for you to escort them one an adventure into a different world, are disturbed by the daily confrontation with CHANGE in their everyday life.

In January, 2020, during the Trump Impeachment trial in the Senate, the following article was sited on Facebook:

https://www.newsweek.com/us-showing-many-genocide-warning-signs-donald-trump-expert-very-worried-1483817

-----quote-------
Politically though, Tannehill noted the U.S. trend towards divisive rhetoric and policies under President Donald Trump, who has been repeatedly accused of various forms of racism and has pursued a nativist agenda.

"The politicians enacting it are populists who benefit from stirring Us vs. Them narratives, placing blame for the woes of the nation on others who are somehow less worthy," she wrote. "They yearn for a mythological past [without] these people. It's a highly viable tactic for shoring up support."

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

Writers who study these broad trends are seeing a slide toward genocidal wars -- not just in the USA but world-wide.

This awkward trial of a sitting President is just one component of the thrust of CHANGE at the deepest level of government -- Constitutional level change.

The consensus seems to be that if what he did wasn't a crime, then it ought to be.  We have to do something about this -- that's the Pluto in Capricorn manifestation in the spotlight of media attention.

So how can a Romance writer approach the audience living through having the rug pulled out from under them?

On Facebook, I commented on a thread generated by that Newsweek article posted by someone who sees it as driving the USA toward a genocidal war, thusly:

If we accept a straight line extrapolation, yes, but humanity lurches ahead in a zigzag, often reversing course for a few centuries.

Consider this LONG PERSPECTIVE article from a Time writer.

https://time.com/5770140/millennials-change-american-politics/

That article traces the interactions between generations as Millennials sweep the reins of power from the Baby Boomer generation (as usual ignoring the Silent Generation).

I collect articles like that one on Millennials in one of my Flipboard Magazines, Pluto in Capricorn

https://flipboard.com/@jacquelinelhmqg/pluto-in-capricorn-national-narrative-so8cs2k4y

Pluto in Capricorn is the "magazine" where I collect articles of the far-far past of Ancients, current events, astronomy, astrophysics (FTL drive foundations, plus what we might discover and what we have to go explore), and space travel. That magazine also includes some genetics (most of which I put in a different magazine), Volcanos and other items that might destroy this current Ancient civilization.

PLUTO IN CAPRICORN is where we are now, and it is about CHANGE IN GOVERNMENT, shifting borders (we did that in Channel's Destiny, moved the Territory border to make room for Householdings).

This item on generation gap, shifting views, is related to a Blog post on writing craft I did a long while back:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html

About halfway down that blog post is a list of what signs Pluto was in at various points in history and how that played out in "generation gap" thinking.

Get a good grip on this principle, and the spectacle of NEWS today will suddenly make sense.

OK, maybe not less alarming sense, but a kind of sense that clues you in on where to dodge the falling hammer of generation shifts.

It is a double-pattern, an 84 year cycle superimposed on a 248 years, with a transition superimposing one on the other every 165 years (or so).

Kids are born continuously, not usually in waves (like Baby Boomers), so the concept of "generations" all moving in the same way is nonsense, but where the outer planets are when a kid is born indicates a predilection for an affinity to a particular generation's response to life.

All that is modified by that individual kid's own characteristics then reshaped and maybe hammered by environment. None of this is cut-and-dried. Living life is an art-form.

A writer who understands how the portrait of a civilization morphs with the cycles of Pluto can build a world that seems real to people living today.

Consider, the USA is approaching the first Pluto return (to where Pluto was in Capricorn when this nation was born) in history.  With Pluto in mid-Capricorn, we created a NEW FORM of government by blending two old forms (democracy and republic) while firmly excluding the concept of Monarchy or any other form of dictatorship.

People are thinking about Civil War, but it could be an actual Revolutionary War complicated by the advent of the Internet, Artificial Intelligence, and Apple's War For Privacy From Government Intrusion (even if you're a dead criminal.)

Even science fiction writers may not be thinking "big" enough.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Worldbuilding From Reality Part 12 - Worldbuilding Focuses Plot Options

Worldbuilding From Reality
Part 12
Worldbuilding Focuses Plot Options 

Previous entries in the Worldbuilding From Reality series are indexed here:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/05/index-to-worldbuilding-from-reality.html

Part 11 is about "Worldbuilding Does Not A Story Make" -- which is true.

But Theme is the foundation of Worldbuilding -- what is the substance, nature and function of "reality" -- what does it mean, "the science fiction world," "the art world," "the financial world?"

"World" seems to have both an objective and subjective component or connotation.

Our subjective "world" is focused on our major interest of the moment, on the one thing that looms largest in our perceptions, what we understand as the generator of the parameters within which the future (or at least our own lives) will flourish.

In other words, "world" means "Happily Ever After."

World defines not only what we see, but what we don't (or refuse) to see.

So the subjective perception of "the world" around us does not make the story of our lives, but rather defines the options for actions that will generate the conflicts which, when resolved, reveal what the Story of Our Lives is really about.

One of the definitive points in the life/story/plot of a generation is the War of the Times.

We talk about World War I and World War II, which have generated many movies, many Romances.  Romance flourishes during War because life-or-death-risks are so very primal.

We talk about the Korean War, especially these days with the North Korea vs South Korea conflict in play, with North Korea still allied with (or under the thumb of) China.  We talk about Vietnam, still in living memory of adults now putting their children through college.  Vietnam War is of special interest to today's young audiences because the US politics of the time fractured under the stressful question of whether the USA should be involved at all, while at the same time we still had the Draft which attempted to force young men to go fight.

Every generation has had young men (and now women) blooded in combat, and those who have fought aver that it changed them, opened a gulf between them and those who did not get deployed into real explosive danger.

While you're up to your ass in alligators, it is hard to remember your objective was to drain the swamp.

Our objective, as writers, is to explain how, in everyday reality, a reader can act in order to achieve an actual, Happily Ever After expanse of decades of life.

Right now, in 2020, the HEA as a real life achievement seems to be an idiotic idea.

But in Science Fiction Romance, in Paranormal Romance, you can find not only hope, but a workable plan.

There still exist aspects of everyday life that respond to your personal actions and decisions.  Finding them is one thing, and then presenting those options to your readers is yet another hurdle to leap over.

Here is the principle behind using fiction to convince a reader that they have such options, and the personal ability, fortitude, heroism, and luck to be able to implement that option - make it real in everyday life.

People don't believe what they are told.

People believe what they figure out for themselves.

The harder they have to work at figuring, the more convinced they become of the ultimate truth behind their discovery.

The writing principle is SHOW DON'T TELL.

Once the reader SEES, they figure out for themselves what it means.

Here are two series of posts about how to structure a convincing argument for the Happily Ever After ending.

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

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/02/index-to-theme-symbolism-integration.html

SYMBOLISM is how the writer SHOWS without TELLING. Master its use.

The reader, in times like these, is looking at a world boiling over, spoiling for a fight (or an additional fight), whole massive groups of people trying to force other massive groups to change their behavior.

Historians have often determined that wars are, at their root, all about economics.

We seem to be in an epoch of human history boiling over with passionate religious convictions, one of which is that it is a religious duty to force everyone to adopt your religion, forsaking all others.

But look deeper, and you may find where that same hardwired human propensity for believing is filled up with belief in things other than deities.

Some believe in socialism with the same religious passion others believe in capitalism.  A writer searching for a theme could ask questions about whether any "...ism" is healthy to believe in.

Apparently, humans must believe something.  If that mental  component of our "world" or "world view" is empty, something noxious will crawl in to inhabit it.

Whatever is hiding in the "belief" compartment of our world view will manifest in our behavior.

Behavior, both habitual and adopted (such as living on junk food vs. going on a keto diet) behaviors are plot generators because the internal conflict kicked up between what hides in "belief" and what we, ourselves, or others around us, try to stuff into that belief compartment is a War To The Death.

"War to the Death" internally generates the external behavior that matches it,  thus driving the Plot.

To be a novel, that plot (or sequence of actions) must evolve all the way to a resolution (not the resolution, but at least a resolutions) of the internal and external conflicts.

In our everyday real world, the hatred and revenge fueled wars (large and small) are not likely to be resolved in our lifetimes.  But the internal war between what we believe and what others insist we must believe (or die) can be resolved.

Once that internal conflict is resolved, the INDIVIDUAL is at peace, regardless of the video clips bombarding them from all sides.

That state of internal peace, shared by a couple, reinforced by the coupling itself, is in fact the Happily Ever After.

Here is an article which indicates a connecting link between economics (the source of war) and behavior (the source of dramatic plots).

https://www.inc.com/melina-palmer/these-5-simple-concepts-of-behavioral-economics-can-drastically-improve-your-marketing-efforts.html

Subtitled: The human brain doesn't make decisions in the way we think it "should."

The article is about how marketers use your beliefs to trick you into behaving as they want you to, even if it is against your best interests.

Find a story that goes with such conflict and plots as hinted at in that piece and you will have a novel series.

To find the story, find the Characters who live in that "world."  Their subjective world is nestled in an objective world they can't see because of a belief jammed in under the beliefs they think they espouse.

If you can create that World-within-World structure with your worldbuilding, any story you tell will be vivid with verisimilitude.

Here are two more posts discussing how all this fits together with our modern, contemporary headlines -- ugly headlines we can rip Romance out of.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/06/depiction-part-14-depicting-cultural.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/09/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Headlines to Rip Stories From - Part 1

Headlines to Rip Stories From
Part 1 

OK, from which to rip stories! But who says that?

Since my house has been undergoing renovations, at the same time as I've had pneumonia, I have fallen behind creating these posts.

I do have plenty to say, and a number of topics to explore, but meanwhile, here are some articles that have captured my attention.

Here is a headline to "rip" if you need to make a Character mysteriously sick, or perhaps contrive a murder method.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/11/researchers-find-dangerous-fda-rejected-drug-in-supplements-by-reading-labels/

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Soul Mates and the HEA Real or Fantasy Part 9 Mixing Soul, Science and Politics by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Soul Mates and the HEA Real or Fantasy
Part 9
Mixing Soul, Science and Politics
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts of this series are indexed here:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/05/index-to-soul-mates-and-hea-real-or.html

More on how to incorporate Headlines that are current news into fiction plots, themes and Characters aimed at a possible future audience is here:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/08/index-to-posts-about-using-real-world.html

In Part 7 of Soul Mates and the HEA, we delved into the esoteric theories of how a Soul is structured and why science can't locate, identify, or characterize a Soul.

In Part 8 we looked at the Science behind the HEA, citing the most recent Harvard study, an 80 year project, that came down to steady life infused with happiness (by the study participants self-assessment of how happy they were with their lives) is most likely to be achieved by those who establish and maintain solid Relationships.

Relationships are key?

Really?

For this we need science?

An 80 year study?  How much did that cost?

So let's explore how Aliens (in our Alien Romances) might view happiness, and how that might cause a Conflict with humans they could fall in love with.

On this blog, in the Tuesday posts about writing craftsmanship, we're discussing the Romance Genre and the respect it garners (or does not garner) among the general population.

We've focused on how to convince skeptics and disbelievers in Romance that this genre actually contains value for them, personally.

There are so many urgent problems in our general society, that would, it seems to me, be more easily solved if everyone read Romance novels in their spare time.  You can take any Genre - Western, Mystery, Action, Intrigue, Suspense, Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy - and insert a Love Story.  From there, to a hybrid-Romance sub-genre is a matter of adjusting the Plot so that the usual genre content is carried on the Story while the Event-Sequence focuses on the stepwise development of the Relationship.

If Relationships are the key to Happiness, and therefore to Happily Ever After (THE HEA), and if as noted in Part 8 of this series of posts, the disruption of the family and its ties to local community has left a generation bereft of the brain-development necessary for Relationship Building, then it seems to me Romance genre is the key to healing society.

In Part 8, we also noted the epidemic of Loneliness now officially noticed by sociologists.

This Harvard study
https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/harvard-spent-80-years-studying-happiness-we-now-know-1-key-habit-that-makes-people-happier-the-problem-most-people-never-even-try.html

says many important things and links to other articles in Inc. Magazine, but this one stands out to me because it's mentioned only in passing:

---quote---
From a pure physical health perspective, researchers say loneliness is as bad for you as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
---end quote---

That's from US government statistics.

Here's the thing.  Tobacco use became a huge government focus, forcing warning labels with black borders onto packages, raising prices with huge taxes, litigating to bar smoking in public places without consent of others there (so now we have outdoor areas designated for smoking breaks).

So tell me, why isn't there government action targeting LONELINESS?

This same article in Inc. Magazine puts forth the cure for Loneliness.  It says people have the most success breaking out of the prison of loneliness when they VOLUNTEER -- to help others, just do something for free.

In Part 7 of this series we looked at theories of the intricate structure of the Soul as described in articles posted on chabad.org

That's a Jewish religious organization, the fastest growing one in recent decades.  People drift into it, feel comfortable, and just linger or return.

One core message of Judaism that has communicated to both Islam and Christianity, and which has arisen to prominence is all the other world Religions, is that doing a Charitable Deed benefits you as much (sometimes more) than others.

The leader of Chabad (called The Rebbe) often prescribed some act of Charity for the woes people brought to him.

Doing an act of Charity almost always changes a person's life direction, mostly for the better.

Mostly, it doesn't matter what the motive is.  GIVING initiates a cycle of interaction with the world that is different.

We talk of Giving And Receiving -- always with giving coming first in the sequence.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/theme-element-giving-and-receiving.html

Is this a magical principle, a religious principle, a scientific principle, or some social or political principle?

Some might say the demands of "socialists" to strip wealth from the 1% and level the income distribution curve (nobody ever says to what slope we need to level it) is flat out wrong because it's stealing.

Others might say that the insane profit margins that "capitalists" demand are stealing.

Maybe they are both correct?

Maybe money isn't the root of all evil, but rather is the source of happiness?

Most religions extant today insist that money can't buy happiness.

Maybe they're wrong?  Maybe happiness can be evoked, instilled, triggered, or initiated somehow only by GIVING.  To give, you have to HAVE what to give.

Maybe the monetary transaction that transports happiness from one to another is not "purchase" at all?

Aliens with a different view of what a Soul is, and thus a different experience of Romance, Bonding, and all Relationships, might consider money (the artificially created coin of a realm, such as a dollar) a medium of exchange, but not one of "giving."

That is, Aliens might view Charity as every sort of Giving except the giving of money.

One can give Service, Respect, Honor, handicrafts, skills, education, information, and sometimes the Performing Arts can give entertainment.

If giving Charity, or as the article in Inc. Magazine noted, Volunteering, is the one thing securely happy people do, and happiness depends on secure Relationships, and Relationships depend on volunteering (e.g. giving) why isn't government focused on the Public Health Benefits of free will giving?

Giving, by definition, has to be a chosen action, a free will choice, without any coercion or requirement or form to fill out to prove you did it.

It's not a tax deduction.

What would these Aliens who think of Charity as everything but money see in us, today?

Today, government has become the largest Charity institution -- and has labeled many of its Charitable institutions "Services."  But all the Services are provided by people who are paid money (coined and regulated in value by that very government).

The money the government sends out to people who can't support themselves is likewise coined and valued by that government, but it is taken (by force of taxation) from the people who would benefit by giving it to the poor.

After having been fleeced by the government, these people don't have any money to give as Charity.

Small wonder loneliness is a spiritual plague sweeping the world.

What would the Aliens who don't see money as something you can give as Charity make of us?

Catholics still pass a plate at services, to collect donations, and the givers who put money in the plate gain in virtue.

When natural disasters strike, our first impulse is to establish a FUND, so people can GIVE MONEY.  Some organizations still collect things (food, blankets, shoes, laundry detergent) to distribute to disaster victims. But that has become too inefficient to be useful in today's world,  so organizations ask you to Message a certain number to donate $10.

It's a wonderful feeling to be able to help out others without getting mud on your own shoes -- but suppose our Aliens held us in contempt for that, and blamed the use of money instead of personal effort as the source of our misbehavior as a species.

Suppose we were deemed ineligible to join galactic civilization because we regard giving money as giving while at the same time the money we are giving has actually been TAKEN from its rightful owner?

Government TAKES from tax-payers.  Every cent government gives in disaster relief (or social services) it got by taking from its citizens.  Even coining money reduces the value of money people have saved, (that's hard to grasp, but it's true), so coining more money to distribute for disaster relief is another form of TAKING.

Taking doesn't have the same Soul-level effect as Giving does.

If the Aliens we're talking about regard Humans as having kindred Souls, as we noted in Part 7, G-dly Souls, and therefore regard humans as potential mates, potential Soul Mates, but see human Souls as somehow unable to mate because of trying to do Charity in impossible ways, what sort of Conflicts would you construct for your Alien Romance?

Humans might be regarded as infected with a Loneliness Plague (which could be deemed contagious) because of this abuse of Money.

The Loneliness Plague is deadly because it reduces lifespan measurably.  Humans know that, but ignore it and keep on (insanely, the Aliens would think) taking money by force and then giving it instead of real Charity.

Do you see what I'm doing with these Headlines?

The headlines combine into a Theme:  Giving and Receiving
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/theme-element-giving-and-receiving.html

From the THEME - a world is built.  A strange world inhabited by governments that take money by force.  Who ever could imagine such a thing?

The point of view Character has emerged, confounded by the specter of humanity and human insanity.  He's looking at a global civilization morally impaired by misbegotten beliefs and no valid concept of ownership, what it means, where it originates, what it's for, and what dangers it presents.

Humans are either idiots or proto-intelligences.  There's something very wrong with Earth.  It's toxic.

But his job is to infiltrate and map this global civilization.

So he puts on his human-disguise, lands in a remote location, and proceeds to infiltrate -- oh, say Los Angeles where the stranger would not be noted.

He's scared to death, but doing his job.

And he meets his Soul Mate.  She's out collecting Charity donations for Earthquake victims in Japan.

What is she asking for?  Money, bills or coins.

He's met his Soul Mate, and she's a raving lunatic who thinks Charity has something to do with money, especially government coined money.

What happens next?

Or take the set of Headlines we've discussed in Part 7, 8, and 9 and rip out a different theme, something having something to do with Loneliness, Happiness, and Volunteering.  Design your postulated Soul-Structure differently, so that your Theme, Conflict and Resolution speak about something other than Giving and Receiving, and Charity.

Find another answer to the question: "Why is government not addressing the Loneliness Plague as a disease caused by substituting Taking for Giving?"

That answer is your Theme.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com


Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Index To Posts About Using Real World Headlines In Fiction

Index To 
Posts About 
Using Real World Headlines In Fiction

The best advice (ever) on involving "the media" in your fictional story is in the screenwriting series, SAVE THE CAT!  and consists basically of the warning DON'T INVOLVE THE MEDIA.

This is also true of using media headlines as a springboard into a story, and quoting them historically in a story set decades ago.

On the third hand, captivating an audience that lives in contemporary reality with a story set elsewhere/elsewhen (as in Science Fiction or Paranormal Romance) requires a broad awareness of what's going on in the world, and what is of primary concern to your readers.

Mostly, readers come to Romance to "get away from" the harsh edges of Reality, but if you deliver a point of view or reframing of reality that helps the reader return to reality with new strength, you will get word of mouth advertising.

We have discussed the use (and abuse) of headlines and media-narrative in many posts, mostly involving theme.  Many of these posts on the Media Headlines are embedded in series of posts about integrating various writing techniques into a seamless whole (so readers can't tell you are using a "technique" at all.  Craftsmanship should never be apparent, or it is very bad craftsmanship.

So here are posts scattered among various series of craftsmanship posts, that discuss what you can do with current media headlines, how to rip a story out of the headline to captivate a specific readership.

Theme Worldbuilding Integration Part 6 - Use of Media Headlines
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/02/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-6.html

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 4 - Understanding the Headlines You Use For Springboards
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_18.html

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 8 -- Guest Post by Flying Pen Press on Headlines and Titles
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/03/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_18.html

Reviews 9: Sex, Politics and Heroism
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/08/reviews-9-sex-politics-and-heroism.html

Depiction Part 1 - Depicting Power In Relationships
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-1-depicting-power-in.html

Depiction Part 2: Conflict And Resolution
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-2-conflict-and-resolution.html

Reviews 10: Shadow Banking in Fantasy And Reality by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/reviews-10-shadow-banking-in-fantasy.html

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 23 - Mastering The Narrative Line
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/10/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_86.html

Depiction Part 19 - Depicting The Married Hunk With Children
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/depiction-part-19-depicting-married.html

Worldbuilding For Science Fiction Romance Part 2 - Imagine An Impossible World
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/10/worldbuilding-for-science-fiction.html


Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Worldbuilding From Reality Part 9 - Conquest In Romance

Worldbuilding From Reality
Part 9
Conquest In Romance
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg 


Previous parts in this series are indexed here:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/05/index-to-worldbuilding-from-reality.html

Every world you build to showcase your story has to include the basic cultural elements anthropologists have identified in human cultures from time immemorial.

That doesn't mean your Aliens have to be Human!

It means you, the writer, has to explain to your reader why your Alien culture lacks this or that element common among humans, and what that absence means.

Spock on Star Trek is the most obvious example, and was created around exactly that formula -- "Human Minus One" -- in his case Emotion.  From that Character, all of Vulcan culture and history was fleshed out.  The necessity for that became obvious when the marvelous one-liner hit the air -- where Spock identifies a Romulan visage as reminiscent of his father.

One of the elements in human cultures has always been Religion -- or some sort of notion about supernatural forces interacting with "real world" elements.

Humans imagine.  If your Aliens have any imagination, they have something that fills the niche of Religion (organized, institutionalized, or not-so-much).

But not every Alien culture has to use (or blame) Religion for sexual behavior.  Not every Alien culture has to integrate Romance and Sexuality.  Sex may be completely irrelevant to Romantic attachment for an Alien.  If so, you have to explain how that happened to a species, and illustrate what it means in relationships with humans.

Alien Romance is a gigantic field that has barely been explored, certainly not mapped, and leaves everything wide open for writers.

There is one rule of writing craftsmanship you must meet, even when exploring Alien Romance with or without sexuality -- your worldbuilding must be internally consistent enough to seem like Reality.

OK, our everyday Reality isn't very consistent, but it does keep reverting to well known norms.  If you're going to create verisimilitude enough to transport readers into an Alien culture that does not have sexual arousal during Romance, you need to keep your worldbuilding rigorously consistent.

Worldbuilding, we have established in other series of posts on this topic, is rooted in a Theme.

Just like Spock delineates the theme of Emotion Is Not Logical in Star Trek, so your Alien delineates the theme of your entire world by what that Alien Culture has that humans do not -- or what the Aliens lack that Humans have.

One variable is all you get to play with in a work of fiction where you are departing from everyday Reality.  Just add or subtract one, and only one, element from the world your readers know, then pursue the way that affects everything that happens in an ordinary, regular Romance genre novel.

Suppose you want to rip a notion from current media headlines, from the media's current narrative, and create an Alien Romance from that topic.

One prominent narrative topic in 2019 is a second wave of challenges to Roe v. Wade and a woman's sovereign control of her body.

I'm pretty sure you can find marriages ending in divorce over this massive philosophical divide.

It is entirely possible that abortion is one, perhaps the only, issue that Love can't Conquer, even though it can Conquer All Else.

I do see our everyday reality as a place where love conquers all, and can even conquer this one, horrendous, topic.  But it is easy to imagine a fictional pair, head over heels into an epic Romance, ripped apart by this one topic.

Does a man have any rights over a fetus he fathered?

Does the Law have any business trying to criminalize any actions for or against abortion?

In the USA, we have the constitutional division of Law and Religion -- we can't make laws governing religion.  But in the 21st Century, that division is becoming blurred.

Take for example, a pregnant woman who is addicted to drugs (some bad stuff - heroine etc.).  What is her legal obligation to the fetus?  To the newborn baby, born addicted, and thus suffering a life-long set of health issues which, very possibly, the State has to pay for?

Where do the mother's rights leave off and the baby's rights begin?

The answers to those questions are THEMES.  Take a stance one way or another, state the theme in one sentence, and select every element of story, plot, character, setting, conflict, etc. to illustrate, explain, or challenge that theme.

Theme is philosophy and religion distilled into a platitude, aphorism, or folk wisdom.

So when you build a world from Reality, you start (whether you know it or not) with a theme, some idea about what Reality is or is-not.

Those who start with the concept of Soul Mates are inherently starting with the concept of Soul as a reality in their built world.

What is a soul?  Where does it come from?  Where does it go?  Can souls die?  Can souls be destroyed?  Or do souls learn?

Each of those questions is a brick you build into your world's edifice whether you know it or not.  We all make assumptions about our everyday Reality, but rarely do we articulate those assumptions.  So your Characters, likewise, may have many assumptions about Souls and how they slip into or out of Manifestation, and have no clue why they believe what they believe, or why they are willing to die for a cause.

There are women who will commit themselves to die trying to give birth, and others that prioritize themselves over an unborn fetus.  Both sorts of women are courageous, heroic, and completely believable to your readership.

In fact, one sort can transform before the reader's eyes into the other sort, and the transformation can be completely plausible.

Many women on one side or the other of this divisive issue hold their position because of Religion -- some from adopting a Religion later in life, others having been raised to certain strict standards of right and wrong.  But today's readerships are maybe more than half atheist, and that half divides pretty much along the same line (risk life to give birth vs. my life is more important than potential life).

So entire philosophies of "Who Am I" questions are woven into the themes you can use to feature a conflict over abortion.

Historically, abortion has been an issue that shatters the mood of romance, but today's readers and writers are gradually exploring Romance that deals directly with spouse-abuse, with rape and incest, and even abortion.

And all of these relationship issues are super-charged by Religion.

People on any side of one of these issues point to Religion to justify their position, while the people on the other side point to Religion to nullify their opponent's position.  Sometimes, they both point to the same Religion.

If you're writing Alien Romance, your aliens might have no regard whatever for an unborn fetus -- or even for an infant less than 5 years old.  Some human cultures don't name a child for a long time after birth.  So Aliens who think like that would be plausible to everyday readers.

In Paranormal Romance, you might have ghosts, demons or angels who actually know what a Soul is, and how decisions implemented during mortal life determine fates in the afterlife.  They might be allowed to tell mortals, or perhaps be prevented from telling.  Plot driving conflicts can arise over the refusal to tell -- or disbelief of what has been told.

So to craft either an Alien to love your human Character, or a Supernatural Being to love your mortal, you need to choose an answer to the questions that define Soul.

Are Souls real?  Does every human have one?  Does your Alien have one?

Are Souls necessary for Romance to happen?

The answers to those questions are THEMES.  You build the answer into your world, and that integration gives rise to your main plot conflict.

Whatever your answer is, there is a Character in your story who takes the opposite stance.  That creates your integrated Theme-Plot-Character structure.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/index-to-theme-plot-character.html

To lure your reader into such an explosive story context and deliver the promised Romance, you need to study up on the World's Religions.  Chances are much of what you think you know comes from news or online articles.  That is necessary information as it tells you what most of your readers think they know -- thus lays out the plot which your conflict will generate.

People act on what they think they know.

Characters can act on what they think they know, but to tell a story, that Character must "arc" -- or learn something the reader didn't know, and begin to act in a distinctly different way.

So study the solidly orthodox, strict, version of several religions, and contrast it with the vastly more popular, more relaxed and accepting version of that religion.  For example, Catholicism vs. Tent Revivalist vs. TV Evangelist.

You might also study the Law, and the history of laws on a particular topic.

It can lead you into many topics, and sorting them out can be difficult.

Themes designed to support a long series of large novels can be "nested" one inside the other, to produce what some call the "braided plot" and possibly use several viewpoint characters.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/09/verisimilitude-vs-reality-part-3-game.html

But to nest themes, they must all relate to a single, overall, or envelope theme.  All the questions you answer have to be about the same topic.

Take "conquest" for example.

A Master Theme might be, "My Way Or The Highway"

Sub-themes could be answers to such questions as "Who Am I?" "How Does A Human Choose A Way?" "Do Humans Get A Choice?" "Is Running Away From Home Better Than Running Toward A Goal?"

Each of those sub-theme areas could split and split again to eventually come down to something small enough to fit into a single novel.  Together, they could make a series or a life's work.

Philosophy behind novel themes can be very abstract, and start with things about the notion of a God who is the Creator of the Universe, the master architect.  Does the Divine force take a personal interest in individual humans?  Is that different from interactions with Aliens?

Would a Ghost be able to hold direct dialogue with the Creator of the Universe?  And then tell a human?  Or perhaps a fetus?

Would a Creator still have any power over the Creation?  Note how the Bible's story of the Tower of Babel shows without telling what happens when the Creation challenges the Creator.  What if the Creator hadn't been so gentle in Conquest as to just mess up the ability to communicate?

Some answers to these questions in the context of Romance Genre will inevitably lead to all the issues of human sexual relationships, and thus to how human law attempts to codify morality.

But what about Divine Law?

The Hellenistic Greek gods didn't lay down laws that they, themselves, abided by.  They operated, like the Roman gods after them, basically on whim, and under the thumb of the biggest bully god.

Humans developed Law as a concept, but only very gradually, over many generations.  What if your Aliens don't have the concept of Law, as Star Trek's Vulcans don't have emotion?'

Not all of modern Earth lives under the Judeo-Christian concept of a Creator who has told us His Laws (10 Commandments, 7 Noachide Laws, or 613 Commandments).

The 10 Commandments and the whole set of 613 Commandments given in the Old Testament are considered to apply only to Jews, while the 7 Laws given to Noah apply to all humans.

But overall, the concept is a Divine Creator explaining how Creation works to his Creatures.  And it is a contract. If humans do this, then the Divine will do that.  Our deeds don't cause the Creator to act.  The Creator's word of honor on the Contract is the cause of the consequences of our actions.

Our real world is currently built on the aspiration to make Laws that fill in the outline given to us by the Divine.

Even atheists agree that most of those boundaries around human behavior make for civilization to function to the advantage of most (if not all).  

The USA is founded on the idea that government can't infringe on personal sovereignty.  Each human is entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (though there was a big argument over happiness or merely the pursuit thereof.)

Most of the Founders who framed the legal structure of the USA were Christian, and some were Christian mystics.  A lot of their subconscious assumptions became infused into that legal structure.  When they separated Church and State, they were thinking mostly of  various Christian churches, not freedom from Religion, not valuing pagan religions the same as Christian ones, and certainly not accepting the Jewish way of looking at the world.

But today, the USA is a dynamic and creative wellspring mostly because all these varieties of belief systems co-exist, interact, and even conflict.  Our differences are our greatest strength.

Yet, today's politics seem bent on conquest, not co-existence.

The political lines are being drawn as Men vs. Women, with sovereignty over the physical body at stake.

Does the father of your child have the legal right to force you to risk your life giving birth to his child?  What if your husband raped you?  In some religions that's not possible.  But civilization could stand or fall on that exact issue.

When does a woman have a right to an abortion?  When is a woman required to have an abortion?

Can human law be crafted (and enforced) to govern these decisions?  And if so, then what happens when men go to war over women?

Could the Gender War be settled by Conquest -- of either side over the other?

Are any of these questions even relevant to what is really going on with the US Supreme Court deliberations on Roe v. Wade?  I'm sure they're deliberating whether to take this or that case that would challenge the precedent.  If you're writing futuristic romance, you have to guess whether, in your built future world, Roe v. Wade still stands, and if not, what replaces it?

Here is an article that may give you some ideas of where Roe v. Wade is most vulnerable to being modified, or where the 2019 States attempt to craft anti-abortion legislation at the state level might be stopped by the Supreme Court.

Freedom of Religion is baked into our legal system, and most people think that all Religion is inherently anti-abortion.  Many Christian sub-divisions hold that no matter what (rape, incest, dire health collapse of the mother), no pregnancy may be terminated voluntarily.  So most people, even atheists, think that the only issue Religious people have with abortion is to prevent women from having abortion.

If you are pro-choice, you therefore must be anti-Religion.

That is the unconscious assumption.

However, the opposite is the case.

In Judaism, there are circumstances where a woman is required to get an abortion.

Yeah, who would think it?  But an adult woman, especially one with other children to raise, is absolutely not permitted to continue a life-threatening abortion.  Beyond that, different Rabbinic authorities hold that some other circumstances (such as psychological issues), may also dictate the necessity of an abortion.  Nobody can force a woman, no matter the risk, to have an abortion -- but sometimes, to comply with the Creator's Will, she must choose to do so.  A person who commits suicide is governed by the same laws that pertain to one who is a murderer.  Suicide is considered self-murder, and continuing a truly dangerous pregnancy would be suicidal.

Some of the current State laws being tried out would prohibit the practice of this religious requirement to save one's own life.

Here are two articles - one on the legal implications of abortion, and one on suicide.  Put them together and generate a lot of themes.

https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/What-Jewish-law-really-says-about-abortion-590448

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4372311/jewish/Suicide-in-Judaism.htm

Another Jewish view holds that the Soul descends into the unborn fetus gradually, and over time.  That line of thought also holds that the Soul continues to descend after birth, as the body develops all the way to sexual maturity (12 or 13 years).  Does the degree of presence of a Soul have anything to do with the choice of abortion?

What about robots, A. I., will Souls descend to inhabit machine intelligence?

As a writer, consider the incredibly dramatic irony of these opposing views:
Religion requires abortion vs. Religion prohibits abortion.

Right now, this Earth is not in imminent danger of running out of humans. Other species are endangered, so it could come to us very soon.  Or colonies on other planets would place a much higher value on new children.  Artificial wombs will solve a lot of this problem, but will such children acquire souls?

Also note the birthrate in the USA has slacked off to where some official notice is being taken -- perhaps it's time to worry?

Nothing shatters the mood of a Romance novel like murder, death, blood sprayed on the walls, rape, abusive beating -- all the ugliness that goes on in our everyday reality.  Yet, writers are artists who love a challenge.

Can you build a world where one side or the other triumphs in conquest of the other side in these Religion vs. Politics debates?

Can you build an alien civilization where a refugee from the shattered Earth can find Romance and safety?

If you build your world out of unrelated bits, a hodgepodge patchwork world, it won't be a work of Art and will not communicate your theme clearly.

So try starting with your true, most deeply held, belief about Life and Souls.  Weave a powerful Romance, and drive the Characters to an accidental pregnancy.  Will Romance turn to Love and Conquer even this immense problem?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, October 02, 2018

Worldbuilding For Science Fiction Romance Part 2 - Imagine An Impossible World

Worldbuilding For Science Fiction Romance
Part 2
Imagine An Impossible World 

Part 1:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/01/worldbuilding-for-science-fiction.html

In Part 1, we looked at the component of Artistic Composition.

Now, in Part 2, we will look at how to compose the vision of another world, or a futuristic world, using the techniques of science fiction to weld a science story to a Romance.

Pick a science - for example, let's look at sociology or psychology, "soft sciences."

If you need to detail the invention of an FTL space drive, you need to pick astrophysics, or something mystical.  For this exercise, let's look at the notion of "Ripped From The Headlines" as the source of story ideas that sell to wide audiences.

The purpose of this blog is to explore what Romance writers can do to create the Romance Genre version of Star Trek and Star Wars - reaching audiences that actively loathe the genre you are selling them and convincing that audience that they've been missing something.

We have spent a few months exploring the loathing for the HEA, the Happily Ever After, ending which is the primary signature of the Romance Genre.

Readers want a "complete story" -- a story that starts with the explosion of a problem into the life of someone they can understand.

People want Characters struggling to do something they are now doing in their life, so they can watch the Character succeed in the struggle by inventing a new solution to the problem.

So let's look at a problem in sociology -- Fake News Media Bias.

The way events are revealed and covered in the media today irks a lot of people -- and it irks both ends of the political spectrum equally.

People don't want to be told what to make of an event, an utterance, a proclamation, or Supreme Court Decision.  They just want to know what happened, who did what, and how it relates to their prospects for succeeding at (whatever they are doing) life.

So figure out what irks audiences about the Media representations of current Events (politics is always fertile ground! But on the whole, leave the "media" out of your story, and plot, and present all sides of the political argument in the headlines.)'

It's Fake News that irks people -- only these people believe X is fake news and Y is true news, while those people believe Y is fake news and X is true news.

You want to write a Romance -- you don't want to identify X or Y as fake news.

So imagine a Visionary "future human dominated Earth" where news is News, not Fake and not True, but just News.  Imagine a civilization where the problem has been solved and everyone is deriving their diverse and contrary opinions from the same Facts.

That Vision you imagine is the ENDING of your Romance, the HEA.

Now, work backwards to the problem that combining the Two Characters into a Harmonious Couple will solve.

The problem is a society that is in perpetual angst over what is real being mixed up in what a malevolent manipulator is weaving into the warp and woof of the society's fabric.

So your opening might be a College Graduation ceremony where, at a party after the ceremony, someone misbehaves egregiously and there is consequent media coverage at variance with what your Main Character witnesses.

Then there's a Court case.

Suppose the witness is deeply involved with the miscreant and called to testify where the junior most lawyer on the prosecutor's team is a fellow graduate who also witnesses.

Chapter Two is the court decision being handed down in accordance with the imaginary (or rigged ) facts as reported in the media, not what these two witnesses saw happen.

Chapter Three is the two of them together at some kind Event generated by the Court decision.  At this point they are not friends.  An Event happens, and they discover each other as potential Soul Mates - sparks fly.  They each offend their employers in some way because of the sparks.

Job hunting results from them both getting fired over their argument about the court case results.

Chapter 4 has them meeting again by forces beyond their control, not a random force, but one generated by the Event where their Sparks Flew resulting in unemployment.  Could be a job fair, or a volunteer stint at say, Habitat for Humanity.  Choosing these Events venues, and purposes is all done by consulting your Theme and manifesting the thematic statement in the choices.

The choices of events are also rooted in the Worldbuilding you are trying to do, Portraying the Society that is having this problem they will address.

In Chapter 4, they combine forces, (willingly or unwillingly) to address the problem of facts and imagine an impossible world --- and create it.

You see how the HEA is built into the beginning here.  It is an example of  Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration.  Here is the index to that series of posts:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/index-to-theme-plot-character.html

The problem is presented, the solution is clear -- and "happiness" will result from solving this problem (ever after is another issue -- keep the suspense rolling tighter and tighter until you reveal the ever-after part (probably marriage proposal).)

Here is the Index post to Believing In The Happily Ever After:

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

Chapter 5 is a meeting, maybe over coffee at a busy lunch venue, where the two of them hatch a plan to launch a New Media Company, a web-casting channel with key News Programming (and maybe a blog).

If you need a model for what they can do, and ways it can fail (to keep the suspense up) look at two, twin, commercial news efforts that are working in our world today.

Along the way, they have to discover the concept The Overton Window (key events that pivot the World into a new direction - really change society's values).  Here's a Post on that topic:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/10/glenn-beck-didnt-invent-overton-window.html

The Overton Window is the subject of their conversation over coffee - the scribbling on a napkin probably happens as scribbling on their phone screens set for note taking by hand, diagrams, doodles.

And you have to look at the recent history of companies entering the Streaming News business that may be seen (one day) as Overton Window Events.

https://theblaze.com

https://crtv.com

CRTV has almost put The Blaze out of business -- both tend toward the lurid tabloid end of the spectrum and neither (as of 2018) seem to have their own news gathering operations.  They both sell commentary, not real-time-event-tracking.

When CNN launched as the first news-only Cable TV channel, it launched with a huge investment in (then new) satellite communications mounted on mobile units, and sucked in correspondents and support teams from established networks struggling to make the transition from broadcast to cable (because cable was where the advertising bucks where going).

In 2018, we are watching advertising bucks shift into mobile and streaming ventures.

So currently, there are a few launches of streaming news services (check Roku's list of channels, and Amazon, and Netflix).

The barrier to entry into the Streaming Live News Space is the financing to hire proficient roving news gathering crews, be on the spot, cover breaking news.

Another entry barrier is access to a deep and rich "morgue" -- newspapers used to call the file of previous issues their "morgue."  Today it is a searchable database of sound bytes and video clips  to which you own the copyright.

Both of these barriers can be used as plot-conflict generators, and if done correctly could run this Futuristic Romance out to 5 or more novels.

Here are some previous posts linking to these concepts:

Mastering The Narrative Line
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/10/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_86.html

Making a Profit At Writing In A Capitalist World
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/10/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_11.html

Keep The Press Out Of It
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/06/information-feed-tricks-and-tips-for.html

Using The Media To Advance Plot
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/02/depiction-part-7-using-media-to-advance.html

The News Game:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/03/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

There are Venture Capital incubators and start-up processes for new ventures all over the map.  Most start-ups (over 90%) fail, and most of the rest are being built merely to be sold to "the big guys."

Considering this streaming start-up venture coming up against these barriers to entry into the live-news "just the facts" coverage (which is very unpopular at this time), your new couple with a vision and a wider social justice ambition to fix the world, you have enough plot material for a very long series as their Relationship develops, strains, maybe shatters, reforms, all over the business decisions they must make to create their News Venue.

Maybe they start envisioning a TV channel and end up creating something akin to Reuters or AP - an aggregating news service the big guys (NBC, CNN) subscribe to.

So think about the titles for News Shows to put on this hypothetical streaming service.  Maybe the news show titles could become book titles if you outline a long series.

Think about:

Just The Facts  (talking heads)
Live Update  (Field Correspondents with an Anchor)
Trends  (statistics and charts)
Believe It Or Not ( Items of Breaking News that may not be true)
Around The World (what other countries are telling their citizens.
Confirming Suspicions (which Breaking News is true)

Keeping inventing News Show titles and slants that simply will not sell advertising in today's world which lusts after juicy gossip, ain't it awful, and the latest name-calling shouting match.

The less commercial your title idea is, the more likely your Couple will try to make it fly -- or hire an Anchor who advocates it.

Do you know how to write a News Headline that does not reveal your personal bias?  Try it.  Read some news items and rewrite them without any slant or bias.  It is not easy to avoid "leading" the reader to interpret the significance of an event the way you see it.  Practice and see how much Romance there actually is in the News Game.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Depiction Part 19 - Depicting The Married Hunk With Children

Depiction
Part 19
Depicting The Married Hunk With Children
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts in the Depiction Series are indexed here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

Knowing what your readership sees and understands from Headlines is vitally important to evoking a visual response without actually describing with irrelevant detail.

For example, a paragraph telling the reader the color hair and eyes, height, weight, choice in clothes, educational background - etc of the Character does nothing to draw a reader into the story.  Such detail, all lumped together into one paragraph leaves the reader confused, perhaps bored.  There is no reason a reader should memorize all those details about this character -- then wade through memorizing more such details about another character.

Reciting statistics about a character is not describing and it is not portraying.

Instead, to depict a character, the writer must evoke a likeness from something the reader feels is familiar -- then inject a single, stark but very memorable detail that is incongruous.  Two details, half a sentence at most, depict the character.

So let's Depict the Married Hunk -- who has a wife and children.

When we say "Hunk" we generally mean a very masculine, very attractive, perhaps buffed up -- young, strong, healthy, very probably with an attitude, very likely the attitude needs some work, most likely by a woman worth her salt.

Usually, the term Hunk does not apply to a happily married man raising a bunch of girls to be women.  Hunks are pre-domestication, usually.

But this is 2016 -- almost 2017 -- and many revolutionary changes are in store as a new generation steps up into adulthood.

"Adulting" has become a term because our society has kept the newest generation from growing up -- lots of forces from all directions configure young lives into lives of dependency -- and the expectation that parents will come to the rescue.  We have boomerang children -- off to college, back home to wait to find a job.

Once employed (or married off to someone who is employed) that generation encounters all the complications of performing Adult tasks -- banking, saving, stretching a dollar, dropping today's plans to go solve another person's problems, finding an apartment, making mistakes and having to live with the results.

In the pioneering days of the 1700's and 1800's in the USA, 14 year old boys were pretty much considered adults - carrying guns, hunting, fishing, building and repairing shelter, knowing nobody was going to come to their aid if they screwed up.

Today, we have men in their thirties who haven't gone through that Finger In The Dike, I'm The Only One Who Can Do This, realization stage.

That transition to self-reliance is the primary psychological dynamic in Science Fiction Adventure -- the genre is about the transition in self-image from child to adulthood.

Science Fiction blends well with Romance because the core essence of that transition, the real meaning of Adulting, is the establishment of a life-long, permanent, full of obligations, you can't get out of it, it is up to you, RELATIONSHIP.

Today's world does not regard Marriage as a "you can't get out of it" (thus adult) obligation.  Marriage is now conditional, and either party can just bail and forget it, go on to another spouse.

So if a Character fails to domesticate the Hunk she married, she walks.

But what about the children?

Don't forget the 1800's were famous for the Shotgun Wedding (still a favorite type of Romance Novel - often with reasons other than pregnancy).

So a Hunk, as long as he's still attractive, can always walk out of a marriage.

This creates wonderful conflict for Romance novels.

What is the higher calling -- what is the stronger moral position - which character's thinking depicts them as admirable, someone to emulate?

Is ti staying married to raise the children no matter how incompatible the couple has become?

Is marriage about Romance?  Does Romance -- falling in love, being deliriously happy, believing the world will cradle you in luxury all your life without effort -- have anything to do with Love?

Does Romance = Love?

Is Romance a necessary pre-condition to Love?

Does "I Love You" mean something different during Romance than during Life?

What does Adulting mean with respect to Relationships?

Do you choose a man because of his good looks, strength, prowess?

Does a woman even need a man?

These issues are the core themes of Romance, and to work them into Science Fiction, you need to study how your modern reader is seeing the world.

Here is an article published in July 2016 that describes a study on Testosterone correlated financial risk taking.

The truth behind testosterone: why men risk it all
http://www.wired.co.uk/preview/article/why-men-risk-it-all

Testosterone is what we blame for irrational aggression, for two men fighting just to show off in front of a woman they both want -- or sometimes just to win.

This article is about the addiction to WINNING -- in this case, winning at stock trading, but the statistical correlation reveals how judgement is warped by winning or by losing.

The testosterone study also reveals why the defeated, if repeatedly defeated, knuckles under and does not even try to compete again.

In other words, the fight to win establishes the pecking order among humans, just as in a wolf pack -- which could be why werewolf romance is so popular.

The science of wolf behavior applied to humans makes werewolf romance into Science Fiction Romance.

------------quote from THE TRUTH BEHIND TESTOSTERONE----------
The results were published in a 2008 report in the

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Coates found that, on days when traders made an above-average profit, their testosterone levels went up.

Most surprisingly, the testosterone levels in the morning predicted how much money the traders would make that day: high levels forecast high earnings. At the same time, the traders' cortisol was unaffected by how much money they lost. Rather, cortisol levels were sensitive to the volatility in the market, which is a measure of risk and uncertainty. "Cortisol is likely, therefore, to rise in a market crash and, by increasing risk aversion, to exaggerate the market's downward movement," the report states. "Testosterone, on the other hand, is likely to rise in a bubble and, by increasing risk-taking, to exaggerate the market's upward movement. These steroid feedback loops may help to explain why people caught up in bubbles and crashes often find it difficult to make rational choices."

Coates first learned of steroid feedback loops during his regular visits to Rockefeller University. The testosterone feedback loop is known as the winner effect. The winner effect had been observed in nature for many different species, from cichlid fish to rhesus monkeys, and its physiology is well understood. When two animals square off in anticipation of a fight, they experience a rise in testosterone levels. This self-doping mechanism prepares the animal for competition, increasing the blood's capacity to carry oxygen, quickening the speed of reactions, and, via its effect on the brain, increasing fearlessness and appetite for risk.

In the aftermath, winners can emerge with a tenfold increase in the amount of testosterone circulating in their bodies, whereas losers' testosterone levels can be suppressed by the same order of magnitude.

...This doping effect can sometimes last for months. Nature primes winners to keep winning and losers to keep losing.

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

This finding could explain why the business world is configured like a football game.

So where do women fit in the business world?

Here is another quote from that article on Testosterone.

-----------quote------------
Women produce, on average, about ten per cent of the amount of testosterone that men generate. According to Coates, they may therefore be less prone to excessive risks driven by the winner effect; their stress response may also be less sensitive to risk-taking failures.

During the dotcom boom, it always surprised Coates that the women traders seemed to be relatively immune to the euphoria that engulfed most male traders at the time.

Women seemed to know that a storm was coming. When it comes to the financial markets, Coates says, men are more hormonal than women. Male physiology makes men more attuned to high-frequency risk-taking. "Our latest studies suggest that women are not more risk averse than men," says Coates. "They merely prefer to have more time and information before they take risks."

This doesn't imply smaller profits – quite the opposite, in fact.

Studies of gender differences in investment behaviour consistently show that, in the long term, female investors consistently outperform their male counterparts. This is not, Coates stresses, an endorsement of one sex over another. "It's not that one group is better than the other," says Coates. "They're different. It's just that by diversifying the biology of the trading floor you would counterbalance the extreme tendencies."

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

Women have some testosterone - but not so much as to impair judgement.  And women have a different way of assessing risk.

I saw another study, which I can't locate right now, which indicated that a man's testosterone levels go DOWN after being married, and DOWN again once children come into the picture.

In other words, being married, literally tames the wild animal in the man.

This could be one reason the "arranged marriage" social norm dominated for so many centuries -- and the reason it persists today in some religious communities that prize the level headed, measured, approach to risk taking.  Untamed men would risk offending God without a second thought -- according to that study on testosterone and the stock market.

Consider that Hunk who is the flashpoint of most Romance novels -- a woman spots a man in a crowd, and just knows that gorgeous hunk has to be hers.

What is it that makes a man a Hunk?

Mostly testosterone -- it builds muscle, is responsible for "secondary sexual characteristics" such as hair, and in a winner testosterone causes the man to move with confidence, to exude power and pride.

A female response to the hunt for a mate is to look for a male who will protect and raise her children  -- to bring home the bacon as it were.  A female response is to be attracted to a winner, thus a male with high testosterone levels.

But the objective of marriage is to tame that beast, to lower his testosterone levels.

Your readers live in a social order that is in transition.  Thus Romance novels have long been exploring how women find such testosterone driven men irresistible, and Lust must inevitably lead to sex -- there is just no way to resist that force.

In the 1950's, after women had gone to work during WWII and gotten a taste of independence, of adulting, there was a social argument about women continuing to work -- which culminated 20 years later in the feminist movement, and equal pay for equal work.

Your current readership, for the most part, is made up of people born in the 1990's and raised by two working parents, with a good percentage raised by single parents.

In the 1950's there was a lingering stigma on children of a divorced couple, even after remarriage.  It was hushed.  Not spoken of.  Playmates of such deprived children were not told of the parental history.

The 1960's are famous for changing that attitude.

Check this out by reading some ebooks written during these different epochs -- the contemporary settings depict their era accurately, and the historical Romance written during say the 1960's distort history in a different way that novels written today.

The same effect is visible in Science Fiction.  Read Robert A Heinlein of the 1940's and 1950's if you can get through the sexism, and you will learn something major about how to craft a novel for your current audience.

So we come to a study of modern readerships and how to target that readership.

Here is an item that appeared also in July 2016, written by Jill Filipovic is a journalist and lawyer who is working on a book about female pleasure and politics in America.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/opinion/campaign-stops/why-men-want-to-marry-melanias-and-raise-ivankas.html

This article is about Donald Trump and came out during the Republican Convention.

Read that article on Testosterone and Winning -- and you'll understand Trump's "win-win-win we don't win anymore" chant.  He's been a winner and the article explains why men like that get addicted to winning rather than settling issues in a more sensible way that doesn't create losers.

The point of winning is to create losers, to alter the body chemistry and brain chemistry of other people.

So we have a generation (younger than Trump) who aren't as enamored by the necessity to create losers in order to "live happily ever after."  While at the same time, that younger generation regards marriage as temporary, a situation that can be shirked off despite children, rather than as a sacred responsibility you can never get out of in this life.  (think Historical Romance, Victorian era was when you saw this attitude begin to change under the surface, but not in public.)

Today's generation of young men (many of whom have not gone through the shock of Adulting), are just as testosterone addicted as the elder generations, and young women see just as many Hunks among them.

Marriages do happen -- perhaps regarded as permanent, regardless of difficulties, --- and young men do get tamed and have children who tame them even more.

So we are raising a new generation of young women torn in two apparently mutually exclusive directions -- these are your primary readership -- women whose fathers demand they found successful (winning) careers, and whose husbands expect (but likely won't say out loud because men don't talk about emotion) a stay-at-home-mom for their kids.

Here's a quote from the NY Times article:

-----------quote-----------
This female empowerment narrative — of the daughter, not the wife — is one Americans are more ready to accept. A man who says he’s never changed a diaper and is on his third marriage to a former model may appeal to a resentful male minority, but will look unfamiliar and unappealing in much of the country. A successful child, though — that’s relatable and desirable. When men have daughters, their attitudes shift and they begin to adhere less stringently to traditional gender roles; no similar effect happens to mothers of girls. Fathers of daughters are also more likely to support reproductive rights than men who don’t have girls.

Men have often given their female offspring more opportunities than their female partners, perhaps seeing their children as extensions of themselves. Even today, many men find themselves newly appalled at sexism after having a girl, a reaction apparently not stoked by being born of a woman, married to a woman or simply seeing women as human. In our reluctantly feminist America, one question this election poses is whether we’ve evolved enough to value women as individuals instead of assessing them relationally, as an attractive wife supporting her husband or as a high-achieving daughter reflecting a flattering light back on her parents.
---------end quote----------

Remember that Conflict is the essence of story, and both the Internal Conflict and the External Conflict are derived from the Theme.

What you think and/or feel about a topic has a Theme at the core of it.

What do you have to say about the mutually exclusive demands placed on today's young women?  Are they really mutually exclusive? Do women have to limit themselves to careers that either pay enough to hire child-care (CEO level pay), or not have children, or have stay-at-home-husbands, or adopt a profession that can be done at home with kids pulling on your elbows.

When pondering the career options of the college age woman who is your Main Character, consider she's been reading articles such as the following:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2102517/Women-need-year-recover-childbirth-study-finds.html

And sometimes some women just don't recover at all because of un-diagnosed injuries incurred during birthing -- broken pubic or pelvis bone, torn pelvic floor muscles, the list is long and mostly neglected by OB's.

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/a59626/birth-injuries-postpartum-pain-untreated/

This kind of thing is going through her mind as her friends tuck her into her Bridal Gown for that long walk down the aisle.

This is your readership's view of the world.  Use that knowledge to convince them that there is a solution -- there does exist an attainable Happily Ever After, but it is not guaranteed.  There is risk involved.

We'll discuss risk assessment in more depth as we go on.  "Risk" is the foundation of the element in a novel called 'THE STAKES' -- the stakes are what the main character stands to lose if things don't work as intended.  But 'THE STAKES' are also what that character has to gain if things do go as intended.

Risk/Reward calculations are, in the male of our species, testosterone driven.

So are Romance Novels - right?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 23 - Mastering The Narrative Line

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 23
Mastering The Narrative Line

Previous posts in this series on Marketing are indexed here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/05/index-to-marketing-fiction-in-changing.html

In writing classes, emphasis in the explanation of how to sell your fiction is always focused on the Narrative Hook.

The Narrative Hook is one of those dense mysteries for new writers, especially Romance genre writers because most of a Romance is not NARRATIVE at all, never mind "hook" worthy.

The whole point of a Romance is the emotional Velcro that binds two into one -- yes, Velcro has "male" and "female" hooks that make it stick together, so it is a good analogy.  That's not "narrative" but worldbuilding and Theme-Character-Worldbuilding Integration.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/index-to-theme-worldbuilding.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/index-to-theme-plot-character.html

We have discussed construction of Narrative Hooks, and will no doubt revisit that pure craft skill.  But it occurs to me to wonder if the real reason new writers have such an amazingly difficult time crafting a Narrative Hook lies within a lack of conceptualization of what a Narrative Line is, where it comes from, and why readers expect it.  What the Narrative Line has to do with Art and the reader's determination to memorize your byline and find all your books.

The Narrative Line begins with a Hook (on Page 1) and ends usually just before the Plot Climax and Story Conflict Resolution.  The Narrative Line ends with the bald articulation of the THEME,  which is most effective when phrased as a "one-liner."  Those single lines of dialogue that audiences take from movies and quote out of context to reference the underlying theme of the movie -- which has suddenly appeared in their real life.

People communicate in references, in one-liners, and so must your characters.

The Narrative Line is the "Show-Don't-Tell" explication of the Theme.

The Narrative is not the Event Sequence (or Plot, Because Line), and it is not the Character's Life Lesson (or Story).  Both of those are derived from the Theme (or generate the theme, depending on where you start creating the novel). The Narrative Line is usually less tangible, less memorable, and much harder to articulate.

The Narrative Line is what makes sense of the World you have Built.  If the Plot is the backbone of the novel, the Narrative Line is the Spinal Nerve running down the hollow bone, causing the moving parts to move both consciously and subconsciously.

If you can grasp the concept of Narrative Line, find it operating in your own Reality, and then in the (very different) Realities your readership inhabits, then you will very likely have little trouble crafting a Narrative Hook to alert that specific readership to HERE IS THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE.

Real life work situations are usually very boring, repetitive, dull.  Most jobs are tiny parts of a big whole operation that produces something the worker never sees or has any use for.

If you make steel bolts for a living, you aren't involved in enjoying the backyard swing set they hold together -- you never meet those children, have no idea they even exist.  You sweat away your days in a noisy factory floor running giant machines that hammer out identical bolts, and get punished if too many aren't identical enough.

You are on the Narrative Line those parents and children are on, but you don't know it, and you're likely too tired to care.

"Art" -- storytelling -- replicates reality by dramatizing (making larger) certain parts, and minimizing others.  In the case of making bolts for a living, the noise/sweat/exhaustion part gets minimized and the pride/precision/workmanship and economic elegance of the production line is dramatized.

How would you dramatize making bolts?

Well, what if a swing-set manufacturer had a massive recall because of faulty bolts, and the floor manager and maybe his gang of workers got called to testify in court about the process of creating that particular bolt that broke at the top of a child's swing-arc and sent her over a neighbor's fence into the empty cement pool?  The bolt making floor boss has to meet the widowed mother and crippled kid, learn the husband who bought the swing-set committed suicide while the kid was in Shriner's Hospital For Children with bleak prognosis.

See? An isolated, boring, lonely, miserable job can be dramatized by revealing the Narrative Line the boring situation lies on.

This kind of material is sometimes identified as "back story" - and it can be that.  But the parts of the back story that belong in this current novel have to be selected, teased out of the whole life stories of all the Characters, and presented in a discernible "line" -- a curve, or arc, or hurtling straight line into a Fate, ass-backwards into a bear trap, or upwards toward a worthwhile goal.  Selecting what to include in the Narrative Line is Art.  Art is selectivity -- omitting in order to sift a pattern, a statement, a "truth" out of the mixed background noise of "life."

In 2016, we are in the middle of a huge transition in the Narrative Line of the Human Species.

Yes, not "race" because humanity is not a "race" but a species.

And yes, our Narrative Line is about to swoop into a new direction. We have the ability to edit genes (even before figuring out what that gene does), and transform humans. We are using that ability to craft mosquitoes to fight that disease vector.  We've found traces of very ancient DNA from viruses inside our genes.  We're beginning to see how all living things on Earth are "made out of" each other -- we all contain parts of each other.

Tracing the development of genetic knowledge from the mid-1950's onward, you can create a "Narrative Line" and project it into the future.

Then look at research into Personality and Behavior (even Mental Illness).  Brain, nerve, and chemistry studies are probing for the origin of Love inside our physical bodies.

There is even a "line" of studies trying to show how brain configuration determines your politics (Republican or Democrat).  This opens the possibility of "editing" genes so we're all Democrats and don't argue so much.

A person with a job in a vast gene-editing operation might do one task repetitively all day long without ever knowing the "back story" of the Narrative Line or the ultimate result of the end of that Line being reached.

Of course, we also have the Automation Narrative Line that started maybe even before Henry Ford implemented the first Assembly Line.  Today boring, repetitive jobs are being filled by robots.  Today's cars have more parts, and fewer assembly line jobs, even though most families have at least one car (unless they live in the city with bus service).  Of course, the self-driving car will put taxi and truck drivers out of work.

Automation is a Narrative Line you can use to dramatize a Character's life.

Take a hot topic, ripped from the Headlines -- Gun Control as the solution to Alien Invasion.  You can't have an armed (and ignorant) public confronting the Flying Saucer People -- humans tend to shoot things they don't understand, right?  That could start a war we can't win.

Another hot topic, ripped from the Headlines, sexual misconduct by famous people, stars, celebrities, politicians, even Heads of State of other countries.  Or the same misconduct by a total nobody, an unknown, whose trial is dramatized by Network News until everyone knows the guy's mother's maiden name.

Yet another hot topic, ripped from the Headlines, Police Misconduct -- over-reaction against suspects who are actually innocent.

Which leads to another topic, the legal principle of Innocent Until Proven Guilty which is the Narrative Line Media News has set aside in favor of Allegations Must Be True Or They Would Not Have Been Alleged.  Suspicion = Guilt.  For example, merely being on the Terrorist Watch List is cause for suspicion.  Or the bureaucratic mishandling of some email documents puts you under suspicion of treason, and we all know suspicion means guilt.

So Narrative Lines have TOPICS.  Mass Communications, such as TV News or making Speeches to stadiums full of people, or guesting on a call-in radio show, requires sticking to a TOPIC.

You have probably noticed that these blogs don't stick to a topic.  There is an esoteric reason for that.  I, personally, do not see the world, reality, or life as divided into separate things of any sort - topics, ideas, points.  With one mental eye, I see Reality as one, single, interconnected, single-origin whole -- completely undifferentiated.  With another mental eye, I see individual particles and people connected directly to a single origin much more strongly than to each other.

This binocular vision gives me a notion of another "dimension" to Reality.

My Topic in these posts is that other "dimension" -- how it is related to what we see with our everyday physical eyes.

As a result, I bring in what appears to be unrelated material and drop it in the midst of what might be making some sense to you.  If you can discern a relationship instead of an intrusion or an "off-topic" remark, you might glimpse a bit of that "dimension" in a way you can use.

Today's topic is The Narrative Line (or arc, circle, spiral).  The Narrative Line of a novel has a TOPIC, but is not a topic in itself.  The Theme is a slice or cross-section of a Topic, and both contains a topic and is derived from a topic.  Theme is what you have to say ABOUT a Topic, not the topic itself.

Once completely drawn, the Narrative Line will illustrate your Theme, and may not appear to most readers to stick to a Topic.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/index-to-theme-plot-character.html

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/index-to-theme-worldbuilding.html

The core skill of Illustration is Depiction.  Here's the index on Depiction.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

Once you have constructed a Narrative Line, fabricated to illustrate (using depiction and symbolism) your theme, you will have no trouble finding the right Narrative Hook for your own Targeted Readership.

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

And here is Part 4 of Symbolism series with links to the previous parts:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/01/theme-symbolism-integration-part-4-how.html

Here is the key post on Symbolism:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/communicating-in-symbols.html

Those posts on Symbolism explain to the fiction writer working in text medium what the visual media (TV News for example, or online video news or advertisement) call "Optics."

Optics is about what the target audience will infer or deduce from the visual image, not about the image itself or the reality behind it. That concept embraces the paradigm "Suspicion=Guilt" that is so pervasive today.  An image or angle on an image taken out of context or perspective is as misleading as a quote taken out of context.

This is why politicians learn to speak to Mass Media in sound bytes or Talking Points, pre-scripted, memorized monologues.  Professional writers create those Talking Points to be quoted out of context harmlessly.  Today's politics is a battle of writers putting words in the mouths of Characters (the candidates) to thwart other writers excerpting those Talking Points to quote out of context and reverse the meaning.

The trick for constructing the Narrative Hook that drags your Target Reader into your Narrative Line and holds them on that line is to select a Topic the reader is interested in, but does not know they are interested in.

When we post a news article on Facebook, we often say "This is interesting."  But the truth is the opposite.  The quality "interesting" does not reside in the thing itself -- but rather in the observer.  What we really mean is, "I am interested in this" -- not that "this is interesting."  English has many such grammatical twists which can be used in writing dialogue (but not narrative).

Here's the index to posts on dialogue - there are actually more than 4.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/10/dialogue-parts-1-4-listed.html

Readers often don't know what is interesting about what they are reading (fiction or non-fiction, the source of fascination is hard to spot and articulate.)

You are familiar with the Acting lessons that emphasize "people watching" -- closely observing people, their mannerisms, accents, dress, and especially "walk" (how they move -- a dancer vs a martial arts master vs a runner vs a soldier etc).  Character is intrinsic in one's "walk" or "stride."

Honing the ability to observe random strangers is the key to good acting.  Honing the ability to observe one's own reaction to words is the key to good writing.

In other words, good reading is necessary to good writing.

What is the difference between reading and good reading?

Analysis.  Just as an actor analyzes the people walking through the mall, the writer analyzes the words of the story being read.

One thing you analyze for is "interest" -- why is this interesting to me?  What is it about ME that makes me respond to this?  A story, Character or Topic is not inherently "interesting."

Grasp that fact and you'll have an inexhaustible source of Narrative Hooks.  Find the right hook for your Line and you will catch a lot of readers.

What it is about you that makes you interested in This Topic is the exact reason why your Target Reader will find This Topic interesting.  If you understand the Topic well enough to grasp the import (even on a non-verbal level), you will be able to explain the Topic to your reader in a way that will interest them -- perhaps subconsciously.

How do you teach yourself to straighten your stories out into a Narrative Line and craft a strong Narrative Hook?

Study Network News -- Video News online -- text-news stories and articles such as the one I pointed you to in Part 22 of this Marketing Fiction In A Changing World series.

The very best way to learn "pacing" in fiction writing is to understand what constitutes NEWS.  "News" is a Plot Development.  Every scene on a Plot-Line starts with a Narrative Hook and ends with NEWS.  That is basic scene structure, and it works on stage, screen and text page.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-3-art-of.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/06/finding-story-opening-part-2-avatar-and.html

To teach yourself to identify a Narrative Line that large numbers of people (even beyond your targeted audience) are interested in analyze Network News.

To teach yourself to understand why those people are interested in these Narrative Lines, study the Network News.

Don't ask people what they find interesting. They don't know (some do, most don't) why a Narrative captivates them.  The most captivating and compelling stories are the ones that communicate with the subconscious, illustrate or symbolize subconscious issues.

Find a Narrative Line that interests you and probe your own subconscious until you see why it does.  Chances are good that once you consciously know why that Narrative holds your attention, it no longer will hold your attention.

To get good at Narrative Lines study the ones that you already have no interest in.  Some of those will be Narrative Lines you have an aversion to.  Those are extremely valuable as they are the raw material of Conflict that can drive a novel.

In our world today, the biggest Narrative Line is the Rate of Change in our world far outstripping our ability to adjust.  The human genome (as currently constituted by Nature anyway) has built-in limits on what can be changed at certain ages, and how fast change can happen, as well as how severe and urgent the need for change must be.  The older you get, the more severe the need must be and the harder you have to work at it.  EXAMPLE: stroke victim learning to talk or walk again.  The older you are, the harder it is to create new neural connections.

Which brings us to Snapchat and the article we touched on in Part 22 of this series:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2016/06/19/what-snapchat-tells-us-about-the-future-of-news-and-information-gathering/#440c2d41480d

As you see in this quote ...
---------quote---------
There are other differences that set Snapchat apart from Facebook, for example the complex algorithms and procedures that have led to accusations that Zuckerberg’s company is editorializing; Snapchat Discover is essentially a feed reader or news aggregator, the magic tool that many of us consider to be the beating heart of our information systems, but that few adults who haven’t grown up with the internet still don’t really understand and thus fail to use. If you don’t use a feed reader you aren’t informing yourself, you’re being informed. Think about it.

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

... if you don't use a feed reader you aren't informing yourself, you're being informed.  I've been using feed readers since they first came available, and many have come and gone since then.  Yahoo is being sold, so I expect my all time favorite feed reader page on Yahoo will be gone.  Therefore I've been watching Snapchat develop, and meanwhile using Flipboard more and more.

The Snapchat Discover feature has serious promise.  The Narrative Line of the world's problems as seen by the young people this Forbes article refers to is very different from the Narrative Line presented by Cable News or Broadcast Network News.  They will lose audience share as the older folks die off and the young become Middle Aged, thinking about "the narrative" in a different way.

Meanwhile you can find me:

https://flipboard.com/@jacquelinelhmqg

On Snapchat search for thelichtenberg or click here (on your phone)
 https://www.snapchat.com/add/thelichtenberg

As also noted in that Forbes article on Snapchat,

---------quote--------
So while most adults either continue to inform themselves via the same media they have always read or simply accept what is put in front of them by whichever social media, young people are learning to choose, to subscribe to publications that mean something to them, rather than accepting segmentation, which they see as creepy, as though they were being spied on, and just about accepting geographic segmentation. Meanwhile, Snapchat Discover is an exclusive club, a place newspaper editors are dying to be admitted to, and that feels free to kick out Yahoo! News after six months because Spiegel thought they didn’t get millennials.

I’ve been saying this for a while now, but Snapchat is much more than it seems, and it is doing what it does spectacularly well. If you’re aged 25 or over you might find it challenging, but make the effort: it’s well worth it.

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

Look for and identify Narrative Lines embedded in Mass Market News.  You can rip TOPICS from the Headlines, but to get the Narrative Lines about those topics that captivate the aggregate subconscious of a country or the world, you need to study more deeply than just headlines.

Mining of Big Data is one Narrative Line to follow.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2016/06/19/television-as-data-mapping-6-years-of-american-television-news/#5430ebdf628c

And the counter move to Privacy embodied in Snapchat -- and also Whatsapp's encryption protocols -- is another Narrative Line.

Gun Control, Privacy, Personal Sovereignty, Income Redistribution, Religious Freedom -- these are TOPICS.  Each one has a different Narrative Line on different News packagers (NBC, CBS, ABC, Reuters, AP, Fox, etc.).

These News organizations create the Narrative Line then cherry-pick Events, developments that further that narrative.

Once you get hold of how this is done by comparing them on a New Aggregator like Snapchat or Flipboard, you will begin to understand Scene Structure and The Narrative Hook in a new way.

If you are under 25, you may need to make a conscious effort to acquire the Narrative Line of the world as seen by today's teens -- your market in 5 years or so.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/benrosen/how-to-snapchat-like-the-teens?utm_term=.lcGJJdaZx#.wunppoeAN

------quote----------from buzzfeed.com
my 13-year-old sister, and she’s the most prolific Snapchat user I’ve ever seen.
We live in different states, so I rarely get a chance to hang out with her. That’s what made Thanksgiving so eye-opening. I would watch in awe as she flipped through her snaps, opening and responding to each one in less than a second with a quick selfie face. She answered all 40 of her friends’ snaps in under a minute.
How was this even possible? Is she a freak of nature, or is this just how things are done when you’re young? I had to find out what I was missing. What do these “teens” know that I don’t?
I decided to investigate further…

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

That single description of a 13 year old's worldview should indicate what different Narrative Lines will look like in 10 years.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com