Showing posts with label Love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Love. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Soul Mates and the HEA Real or Fantasy Part 6 - Love Vs. Romance

Soul Mates and the HEA
 Real or Fantasy
Part 6
Love  Vs. Romance 

Previous parts in the Soul Mates and the HEA series are:

Part 1
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/03/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

Part 2
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/08/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

Part 3
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/09/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part.html

Part 4
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/09/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part_11.html

Part 5
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/09/soul-mates-and-hea-real-or-fantasy-part_18.html

In a post About Building a Hero Character from the fabric of your Theme,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/02/theme-character-integration-part-16.html

I mentioned the TV Series NCIS
as lacking in "Romance" which prompted Margaret Carter (who posts here on Thursdays) to comment:

-----quote--------
I have reservations about your comment on absence of Love (Romance) on NCIS. In the course of the series, we've seen McGee and Jimmy (the assistant medical examiner) fall in love, get married, have children. Given the genre of the series, these are necessarily subplots, not main plots, but they are there. And we saw Tony give up his NCIS career to move out of the country and become a father to his newly discovered child (not romance, but familial Love -- although, granted, this event removes him from the series).

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

Margaret Carter (a widely known scholar) is, of course, correct that, from time to time in the long-running NCIS Series, we have seen Characters become involved, move in together, break up, marry, have kids, and generally have a real life outside crime-solving, behaving like "everyone else" living in 21st Century USA.

And I do believe romance writers can learn a lot by studying the scripting of NCIS episodes to a depth where the nuances between Love and Romance -- and the overlap zones  between the two -- become more vividly apparent.

Studying TV Series, or book series, by watching or reading the episodes in rapid succession is a worthwhile exercise because, after much repetition, you internalize the format, shape of the story, pacing of the plot, and perhaps most important, the boundaries of a genre.

Successful, long running, expensive-to-make TV Series, give you an understanding of the narrow tolerances of a broad audience.  Failed TV Series (3 seasons or less, regardless of budget), give you an understanding of the wide tolerances of a narrow audience.

Romance readers are, actually, a very broad audience, narrowly focused on how couples get together -- and even, how there can be an HEA in your future after the heartbreak of a relationship failure, or a widowhood.

TV audiences are even broader, as they must include people who hate "mushy stuff" or Romance in any form, who think spaced-out "In Love" condition is a form of insanity bound to lead to a nasty breakup, and who know from experience that happiness in real life comes in flashes, quickly overshadowed by Harsh Reality.

Dark, Gritty, Grim, Bloody -- those are the attitudes Characters must have toward their fictional realities in order to seem "realistic" to the broadest audiences today.

Today -- but not long ago, and perhaps in the future we will see a brighter view of Reality re-assert itself.

Currently, there is a strong current of disbelief of the existence of anything resembling an HEA - a Happily Ever After ending, the very "ending" that defines the Romance Genre.

Just as the "adventure" genre (to which science fiction has been erroneously thought to belong) requires the Hero to "win" at the end - to vanquish the villain, to overcome all obstacles, to succeed - the Romance Genre requires the Couple (as a unit, as a Hero) to form a lasting bond despite all obstacles.

The Romance writer's main plot-search is always for creative obstacles to keep the Couple apart, strand them as separate individuals.

Love Conquers All is the over-arching Romance Genre Theme, but the definitions of "conquer" and "all" are wide open to interpretation.

So, Margaret's observation deserves deeper scrutiny. 

In the series, NCIS, there is plenty of Love -- every sort of bonding and Relationship Driven Plotting has been touched on over the 15 (or more) years this show has run.

But in the various sub-stories of the lives of the Special Agents (and of the criminals, and the victims), we find no HEA presented. 

Our Main Hero, Gibbs, is single -- with 6 marriages behind him.  No HEA, and no further hope burns within him. A glimmering surfaces from time to time, but his life is all about murders and destroying criminals. 

NCIS exemplifies the lives of those who have given up the search for a Soul Mate.  They live in worlds circumscribed by the HFN - Happily For Now - flashes of happiness sprinkled along the time-line of otherwise dark/grim lives.

The other Special Agents on Gibb's team have other Dark/Grim/Pluto-driven lives -- Tony had a kid he didn't even know about until the mother (arguably his Soul Mate) was presumably killed.  He ditches the job he loves to move to Paris to raise that kid.  What had seemed a bright Romance in his life, flirting and teasing for years, is dashed to bits.  More pain is in store as it seems possible Ziva might be alive.  Is this the story-arc of true Soul Mates?

As Margaret noted, we have seen the assistant medical examiner and McGee (the resident computer Geek, complimenting Abby's wider skills) "fall in love, marry, have kids." 

This raises the question of what the difference is between "falling in love" and "Genuine Romance." 

The Main Character in NCIS (the hero, the Star of the Show, the one whose face is on screen more than any other), Gibbs, has the key-life-pattern that sets up the theme for all the Relationships on the show.

To be a work of Art, a TV Series has to have thematic coherence.  In real life, the people who work together on a team generally do not have that sort of coherence.  When Karma is active, though, even in real life task-forces and groups teaming up to a single purpose do, indeed, have the potential for thematic coherence. 

When you see that coherence emerging in a real life Group you belong to (sub-sets of Star Trek fans, for example, or fans of a particular author), it can set your hair on end.  It is downright spooky.  Like seeing a ghost, you know it is not real, but it is real --- it is more real than Reality Itself.

Fiction, such as TV Series or novels, reveal that dimension of Reality -- or conceal it -- as part of the thematic structure of the Worldbuilding.  That depiction is the Art of Fiction.

Romance Genre is designed to reveal the reality of an otherwise invisible dimension through which the Bond of Soul Mates operates. 

In ordinary consciousness, humans can not perceive that dimension where those Bonds tie us together.  During certain Neptune Transits to your Natal Chart, that perceptual channel is activated, sometimes opened wide, sometimes just tingling with energy. 

Neptune adds a dimension to perception of the nature of Reality.  It isn't a choice -- either reality has an HEA built into it, OR it doesn't.  No-no, that is not how humans apprehend life.  It is more a matter of "sometimes you can see where you're going, and sometimes you can't see." 

Neptune perceptivity comes and goes -- and usually comes on bright and irresistible only once in a normal lifetime. 

As noted on NCIS, Gibbs had a Soul Mate and a child, and they were both killed.  He, while still in charge of a unit at NCIS, sneaks off an murders the man responsible for their deaths. Some of his team know what he did -- he gets away with it.  That is "Dark" - "Grim" - "Gritty" - and a life-story-shape incompatible with the Romance Genre.

Gibb's biography is re-echoed in the biographies of all the other Characters he searches out, vets, and accepts onto his Team.  The Team reflects the darkness that envelopes his soul.  And he does have a soul!  He is both at ease with the murder of the murderer of his Soul Mate, and endlessly anguished about it. 

All of those he accepts onto the Team have the beautiful light of Gibb's Soul in common with him, and are thus willing, able, and eager to Love, to bond (with each other, and with spouses, children, etc.).  But they also share the Dark, the failures, the guilts, the horrible dramatic (Pluto-driven) tragedies akin to Gibb's biography.

One external symbolic sequence that illustrates the patched-over-Souls struggling on with life in a dim, grim, duty-and-responsibility job, was when the producers destroyed the Office section where all the desks are grouped.  They all hate the orange/reddish color of the wall paint, and many are not comfortable with the skylight, yet when the place is rebuilt after the explosion -- it is repainted that exact shade of orange.

Emotional and spiritual lives are reconstructed and repainted like that -- mimicking the past in a desperate grab at continuity. 

That sequence is worth studying as an example of the use of symbolism.

The NCIS Series shows us a world powered by love - love of fellow workers, love of law and order, love of innocent victims, love of special individuals, love of elder-mentors, love of children, and an occasional glimpse of love for a parent or grandparent. 

Margaret is correct.  The Series is permeated with Love, and occasionally, temporarily, Love wins out.

The Art of NCIS the TV Series shows in the unending job of  solving crimes. There's never a lack of crime, especially murder of Marines, on and off duty, active and retired.  The blackest, darkest, most vicious aspect of human nature is bottomless, endless, –– law and order can't WIN against this element of human nature.  The job is a pure description of a life of utter futility -- definitely Grimly Ever After. 

But they solve the crimes. These torn, shattered people team up and WIN against criminals (more so than other teams.)

But their wins are just temporary flashes - HFN.  Something to celebrate, then move on.

This artistic statement of the nature of humanity and human life poses the question, "Is life a futile groping through darkness spangled with flickers of Love?" 

And the Romance writer answers, "No, life is Love, floodlit by goodness, punctuated with meaningful obstacles."  Every obstacle overcome by Love is a Soul-lesson well (and cheaply) learned.

So you can write a cop-show that is a Romance, around a main character who is living his/her HEA, joyfully upholding the law, learning about humanity's aspirations toward goodness, kindness, and generosity of spirit.

One mystery series that seemed to start out to be such a story is Faye Kellerman's Decker/Lazarus novels, starting with a true Romance Mystery Detective cross-genre award winning novel, The Ritual Bath. 

https://www.amazon.com/Ritual-Bath-First-Decker-Lazarus-ebook/dp/B000W916C0/

The series follows the couple after Decker rescues Lazarus and marries her (and her kids), through them having a child of their own, through putting the children through school, through visiting in-laws, through a whole cop-career, to retirement to become a small-town-cop. 

The series depicts the world of NCIS via civilian Homicide division in the big city - the endless and overwhelming job - without the failed HEA being the core organizing principle of the Theme.

A successful marriage, plenty of drama, lots of personalities and conflict, but a very realistic HEA situation.  This series almost defines what an HEA looks like in our real world -- plenty of dark grit, plenty of awkward social situations, but Love fueled by an unending Romance energizes these Characters.

The dimension of Reality that Romance adds to mere Love is (very oddly) stability.

Romance, as I've noted is made available to real life people during some Neptune transits to their Natal Charts.  Neptune "dissolves" reality, wipes away barriers.  That is the definition of the Romance Genre (Love Conquers All).

Love, on the other hand, is made available to real life people during certain Venus transits to the Natal Chart, or Solar Arc transits of Natal planet to Natal planet.  It is Venus to something, or something to Venus -- Venus is always in the mix. 

Neptune is famous for destabilizing, and Venus is famous for giving nice feelings, wealth and pleasure.  Venus rules Beauty (Taurus) and Justice (Libra). 

When Neptune and Venus combine in an easy-flowing way, you get stability, or something like Chemistry's "steady state" (which is always changing, but always returning to a central value).  You find pleasure and profit in mystery, change, processes that alter your opinions of what is just and right, discoveries of what is inside.

Neptune (Romance/altered-consciousness) and Venus (Love, Beauty) combine in many different ways to produce a dynamic stability we call the HEA -- Venus being "happy" and Neptune being "ever after" (uncertain future.)

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Depiction Part 27 - Depicting Love by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction
Part 27
Depicting Love

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

You'd think in a writing blog about Alien Romance that Depicting Love would be the first topic in the series on how to "depict" the intangibles that make a novel truly memorable.

Love is both the most obvious, simple, easy intangible for a Romance writer to depict, and the most difficult, slippery, nebulous topic to find a concrete "show don't tell" symbol to convey.

We've discussed depicting Love many times from different directions.

Here is "What Does She See In Him?" and "What Does He See In Her" -- a primary question every reader wants a concrete answer to right up front in Chapter One.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-does-she-see-in-him.html

And how to make what one person sees in another into a "symbol" -- something that could be photographed when they make the movie of your novel.  It has to be something that can "arc" or change for those characters because of the events of the novel, and turn up again and again (as a theme does).

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/01/theme-symbolism-integration-part-4-how.html

And most especially - why we cry at weddings.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/08/theme-symbolism-integration-part-2-why.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/08/theme-symbolism-integration-part-3-why.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/communicating-in-symbols.html

We've also discussed Love At First Sight as part of the Happily Ever After ending.

Many good Romance novels start with a Divorced Character, or a widowed Character -- someone who had a good relationship that went sour.  Sometimes the story focuses around an Affair -- that ends well or badly, destroying other people's happiness.

One thing that has split good marriages apart is Politics.  The initial Romance following Love At First Sight often masks the deepest beliefs that form a person's self-image.

People in the USA choose to be Republican or Democrat (or Independent, or Libertarian, or nothing-much) because they encounter "messaging" from a number of Candidates expressing the party's platform.  At that time, a person will identify people who seem to be saying believable things, and "join" that party.  People look for a party that represents what they already believe, or at least some most cherished belief.

Over decades, the USA Parties redefine themselves with the turning of the generations, and espouse different (often contradictory) causes and stances.  The final bundle of positions on issues the Party settles on at the Convention is a mishmash of philosophically contradictory stances.

This happens because the Party platform is "negotiated" by committee.

In fiction, thematic unity is essential.  Fiction is art - a selective representation of reality, not reality itself.

The real reality your Characters live in has no perceptible thematic unity -- which is why people seek that unity in recreational reading.

Readers often pick up Romance novels to get away from the chaotic contradictions of a very confusing world.  The reader is looking for a trip through a world that makes sense.  Readers often look to get away from it all, to get relief from confusion.

Your job as a writer is to depict a world that is not confusing, but is enough like reality to be convincing.

If a novel is too simplified, too much lacking in confusion (Red Herrings), it seems childish and unconvincing.

We discussed a galactic war adventure novel series, with excellent tender-romance here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/03/reviews-31-dave-bara-lightship.html

The main character, a Prince serving in the Military, loves a couple of different women for exactly the reason any Romance reader woman would want to be loved in real life -- little to do with appearance and everything to do with admirable accomplishments to be proud of.  He loves women of Strong Character because of their strength of character.

Nevertheless, the story comes off as too childish simply because the Characters are rewarded vastly for little real effort, and seem to understand way too much of their world with far too little work.

When Characters accomplish too much with too little real effort/angst readers just don't believe the story or the plot.

That's one reason "Love At First Sight" is often viewed with skepticism by readers who have never known anyone it happened to.

But when Love At First Sight happens (and I know it does, so I have adjusted my view of reality to include it), the Lovers are usually too smitten with each other to ask the kinds of questions a Matchmaker would -- or the sort of questions you might find on a good Dating Site.

The impact of "This Person" is so overwhelming that the inquiring mind just does not ask.

The couple might evaluate each other on Values and Principles, but fail to ask why those Values and Principles were adopted, where they came from, and whether they are all consistent with each other.

In fact, most Romance readers aren't looking for a novel that depicts Characters who have stringent philosophical consistency.  Most humans don't revere logical consistency and in fact are convinced emotions have no logical basis.

So the beginning Romance writer, or a writer like Dave Bara and his Lightship Series, may be convinced that Love is not Logical, emotions in general are not connected to or originating in the cognitive functions part of the brain.

Love Is Not Logical is a Theme.

It is a statement about the reality of the human condition, a summation of many assumptions and a conclusion that implies how life is to be lived.

The Theme of my Star Trek fanzine series, Kraith, is Love Is Logical.
http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/kraith/

There is a view of human history that is held dear by those who are convinced Emotions Are Not Logical, a view that is based on the assumption that Emotion Is Logical.  That view of human history shows how one civilization rises, collapses, and gives rise to another civilization, one culture spawning another.

Cultures through history are like our children, made up of the same genes but rearranged and even mutated into something else.

Beliefs are like our genes -- containing much that has gone before, one or two traits that are new, and the whole rearranged to seem new, but it's really old.

We love Regency Romance and Historical Romance set in Castles, arranged political marriages, as Dave Bara uses in his Lightship Series, Rulerships, Kings, Dukes -- we love reading about those times.  But today's novels of the Aristocratic Times whitewash some of the ugliest parts of that reality.

Politics is one of those Cultural Philosophies that propagates as our genetic children do -- like us, identical to us, but vastly different.

In January 2017, Rowena Cherry wrote in this blog:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/01/does-every-cloud-have-silver-lining.html
---------quote----------
I gained a new perspective on why so many folks in society have so little respect for copyrights and the right of musicians, authors, photographers, movie-making participants and others to be paid for their time, talents and effort from the free Hillsdale College lecture covering the difference between Originalists and Progressives when it comes to the rights of an individual.

According to Professor Ronald J. Pestritto, the Progressive ideology is heavily influenced by European--especially German-- thinking, and holds that the needs of the Community is always superior to the needs (and rights) of the individual, and far from certain rights such as the right to Life, to Liberty, and to the Pursuit of happiness being bestowed on mankind as a birthright by the Creator, all rights that an individual has are permitted by the government depending on convenience and expediency.  (And can be revoked.)

How expedient and convenient do you suppose it is to uphold individual copyrights?

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

The Progressive Movement article on Wikipedia is illuminating:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era

The thesis is that the Progessive Movement began in 1890 and ended in the 1920's.

There is a Liberal or Progressive movement, actually several different ones within each political party, today -- and using different labels and symbols, targeting the same social ills that were identified in 1890.

There are several basic ideas about "what" a human being is, where and how humans originate, and under what social contract terms humans can live together -- and those sets of ideas do neatly separate into two camps, two mutually exclusive ideologies.

Note the element Rowena Cherry focused on relevant to Intellectual Property Rights -- or actually, just property rights in general -- does a human own what they make, or not?

Notice how very basic that THEME concept is!

THEME: humans own the product of their own labor

THEME: humanity owns the product of any human's labor

Every two year old coming into the ability to use language learns NO first, maybe MaMa and PaPa, but definitely NO.  And then comes major lessons in MINE.  Toddlers learn to POSSESS their possessions, and the very concept of possession.  They have not, to the adult's way of thinking, earned it, but they own it.

So the concept MINE comes before the concept EARN.

Parents love their children -- and through that love, teach the concept "no" and "mine" and "you can't have that because it is mine."

"You can't take that because it is mine" is an expression of LOVE.  It is a way of depicting love.

MINE is an extremely abstract concept.  Just try explaining it to an Alien whose species does not have that concept.

We discussed explaining humans to aliens, and how it can help writers do solid worldbuilding here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/03/depiction-part-26-depicting-humanity-by.html

One rock that marriages founder upon is POSSESSIONS -- as well as TERRITORY.

If a Couple is split on the issue of regard for another person's possessions and personal space, or territory or privacy, the marital combat will be feral.

The arguments - regardless of what the ostensible subject is (toothpaste tube, toilet seat, cleaning the trash out of the car, overdrawing the checking account, inviting guests without asking the cook) will take on basic animal characteristics.  The combatants are fighting for their LIVES - for their very existence.

The concept MINE lives in us at that pre-verbal level where the 2 year old can only scream red-faced and clutch the toy they just stole off the store shelf.

The adult will defend what is MINE with that same ferocity -- even if what is being defended is only a symbol of the toy their parent would not buy for them (long before they knew about the connection between earning, buying, and mine.

Sometimes LOVE is best symbolized by not-buying that toy.  And sometimes a good marriage is based on not-taking the spouse's possessions.

Children absorb the very definition of what marriage is by the way parents handle and regard the spouse's possessions.

One magnificent depiction of LOVE in symbolism is the way the loved-one's possessions are regarded and handled, not because of what that object is, but because of what it means to the loved one.  Sometimes the most penetrating drama comes with the way a Character handles a possession of a deceased loved-one.

The connection between a person and their possessions (yes, somewhat like the gypsy scam artists claim, or you see in many Fantasy or Paranormal Romances) is a mystical force in this world.

We experience MINE as a mystical force, perhaps because it is one of those pre-verbal learning experiences.  Even dogs know what is theirs and what is not.  Children get it very, very young.

The next lesson in growing up that humans learn is how to make something MINE -- how to acquire what holds meaning.  Seeing the toy on the store shelf, screaming "Mommy, buy me that!" or just "I want!!!"  Then comes Mommy's lesson in how to love -- "Be good and I'll get it for you next month."

You want to own something, you must comply with the wishes of others.  Love is unconditional -- possessing is conditional.

If that's how you are brought up, that is how you will conduct your marriage -- whether you know you are doing it, or not.

That is how deep into the subconscious, into the brain-synapses developed in childhood, that the concept MINE goes.

With age, you learn you have to do chores to get money to buy things -- then get a summer job to earn money, then work your way through college -- and so on.

Along through those years, you may change your mind about possessions, come to see the massive contribution to your prosperity made by your community, society, family privelege, etc, and understand a portion of what you earn belongs to everyone (taxes, insurance).

You may change your behavior so drastically that during a hot Romance, you display only community awareness, not the 2 year old's selfish MINE.  But within months of marriage, that 2-year-old's MINE will assert itself, sometimes to your dismay.

Other 2-year-olds may have learned MINE in a different way, with support and respect for the exclusive possessions of an individual being sacrosanct.

If an adult with a commune mentality of "everything belongs to everyone in the family" marries a "what's mine is mine; what's yours is yours" person, there will be primal-scream-level-combat where neither party knows what they are really fighting for or over.

At some point, that mixed marriage may well crack -- and you, the writer, will have a Character ready for a second time around Romance.

By that point in maturity, the Character will be grappling with the vague and confusing question, "What is Love?"  How do you know if you're in love after being so bitterly disappointed by that Selfish Bastard you gave your heart to?

Or, on the other hand, that mixed marriage may gel and solidify into a happily ever after for real.

How can that happen?  If the very concept of MINE is not shared, how can two people meld into One?

It has happened.  I have seen it happen in real life.  Compromise is not the answer.  Winning a negotiation is not the answer.  Asserting your rights is not the answer.  Separate bedrooms is not the answer (though sometimes it helps.)

Even Love may not be the answer.  MINE may be something that Love can not conquer, at least not by itself.

One human's love for another human may not be up to the job of welding two such disparate views of what a human is into a single marriage.  This is the kind of welding job you write about in an Alien Romance, where a human has to apprehend the true alien quality of this strange Soul Mate.  If the weld is sturdy enough and flexible enough, you do end up with a Happily Ever After between Soul Mates.

Making that HEA ending seem plausible to your modern day readers is tricky.

We've discussed the HEA ending perpetually, and here we go again.  It is based on the validity of the concept, Soul Mates.

If your readers accept the concept of Soul Mates, they may not be ready to accept the concept of Souls per se.  That could take some convincing, a series of long novels.

The concept Souls comes with the question of what they are and how they came to exist -- and what the rules are about mating souls.

You can depict the Love of Soul Mates who nevertheless have primal-screaming-fights about MINE, and whose marriage may founder on that concept, and or its political manifestation (today: Democrats vs Republicans), Fiscal Responsibility, Health Care, Obamacare, Trumpcare, -- who must pay for the healthcare of the poor?  Who is responsible for making people poor to begin with, and for keeping people poor (and why would anyone do that?)

So Soul Mates may end up in Divorce Court.

Or maybe not.

There is a fundamental force in the Universe, a variable related to Love, which some call Delight.

If both Soul Mates become aware of the spiritual forces moving in the world, of the finger of God stirring their lives, (sometimes pregnancy brings this awareness, if only momentarily), and experience a peaceful moment together, they may transcend awareness of MINE.  It won't resolve the issues they fight over, but it will put the Values involved into another perspective.

Remember, we've discussed the two-valued either/or zero-sum-game model of the universe in many contexts -- that model is the foundation of most Conflict, and conflict is the essence of story.

If it is mine, it is therefore not-yours -- is zero-sum-game model.  There is only so much wealth to go around, a pie to slice, and it is not fair if some people get more of the pie.  That is the zero-sum-game model.

Then there is the infinite, expanding model of the universe wherein any human makes something and thus adds to the sum total of human wealth while at the same time keeping what has been made, dubbing it MINE.

The infinite, ever expanding model of reality has no pie to be sliced.  Whatever you make, you keep and divvy up as you choose.

Humans have the capacity to choose to do justice, to give away a portion of what they create.  That behavior is rare in the average 2 year old just encountering the concept MINE -- but it turns up often in the 3 or 4 year old who sees parents giving, and experiences love when recieving.

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

After having been the recipient of giving, a child learns the even greater delight of being the giver.  You can't experience that ineffable delight of giving unless what you are giving is MINE.  You must create/earn and acquire something of your very own, which you have no obligation to give away, and then give it to another (for whatever reason).

The delight of giving is a spiritual experience - an experience that happens, like Love At First Sight, at the soul level.  It lights up the brain circuits, true, but that is a pale reflection of the vast ignition of the Soul.

Possessing that which you have created and/or earned is a pre-requisite to experiencing that ineffable delight of the soul.

Sharing the experience of soul-level-delight can weld a couple into a single whole, a whole that readers can view as deserving of a Happily Ever After life.

So sharing a moment of Soul Delight can work as the climax of a Romance plot, and the Story climax is the realization by both that the moment of supreme intensity was indeed shared.  This Selfish Bastard you want to ditch actually has a heart.  That's a game-changer discovery.

The fabric of the universe is woven from shades of Delight, according to one ancient source.  Here it is in poetic form:

-----quote--------
A bird builds its nest, a tree spreads its boughs, a cloud floats across the sky—and we see there beauty, ingenuity, wisdom and might.

But behind it all is delight. The delight the Creator takes in each thing.

Each thing begins with delight; delight condenses to become wisdom; wisdom condenses to become ingenuity, consciousness, love, might and beauty, and all the other fabric of the universe.

“Nothing is higher than delight,” says the Book of Formation. It is the quintessence of all that exists.          http://www.chabad.org/lx4rt0

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

Think about that.  Delight and thus its derivative Love is more primal than MINE, is woven into the soul way above the point in cognitive development when the toddler learns "No" and "Mine!"

You can't get Delight by taking, only by giving what is Mine.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, November 01, 2016

Worldbuilding From Reality - Part 5 Realistic Happily Ever After by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Worldbuilding From Reality
Part 5
Realistic Happily Ever After
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

The previous parts to Worldbuilding From Reality are here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/03/worldbuilding-from-reality-part-4.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/worldbuilding-from-reality-part-3.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/02/worldbuilding-from-reality-part-2.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/worldbuilding-from-reality.html

Reality is a tricky thing to define. Take any pair of humans and they will disagree on the "reality" of at least one broad topic of life.

Marry those two people to each other and they'll fight cats-n-dogs over that one issue, no matter how much fun they have making up afterwards.

Yet, ultimately, "reality" (whatever it is) is the substance from which fiction is woven.

A fiction writer must study "reality" as closely as any non-fiction writer, more closely than most journalists today.

A fiction writer doesn't need to "know the truth" to set her imagination free, and in fact "truth" probably won't help the WIP get finished.

But if you are a Romance Writer, you need to know what your readers feel is true.

Here is an article about the beliefs of successful people -- if you are writing for successful people, you should incorporate these beliefs into your Characters.  Note #1 on this list is READ.

http://www.businessinsider.com/beliefs-of-rich-people-2016-7

And here is the Source.
http://richhabits.net/rich-habits-study-background-on-methodology/

Knowing what your readers feel is true (as contrasted with what they think is true) is also vital for a science fiction romance novel writer.

What we feel is true does not always line up with what we think is true.

Men differ from women in the area of thinking about emotions.

Nailing that elusive difference on that one topic lets a writer depict a Character as male or female in a way that the reader will recognize without the Character being just another thin cardboard cutout cliche.  But it has to be "off the nose" -- see Save The Cat! If you articulate and delineate that difference, it won't seem "realistic" to many readers.

So today we have 3 separate topics to blend into one seamless artistic whole called a "world" we have "built" -- Realistic - Happiness - Ever-After.

That's a Love Triangle: the Practical Guy - the Idealistic Woman - the Visionary Guy.

One thing Romance genre readers have in common is a subliminal, sometimes elusive, feeling that there really exists a Happily Ever After lifestyle and state of being.

Readers feel that truth even if they have never, personally, observed a couple living a Happily Ever After life.

Why is it that we believe in the Happily Ever After, not as just fantasy but as reality, without ever seeing it with our own eyes?  Believing it is real and then failing to achieve the ideal state is a source of much larger than life, dramatic, angst Romance novels focus on.  "Get a different man, and everything will be fine!"  Is that true?  How could it not be true?

I've collected a few answers to that question that could be used as Story Springboards.

Here's Part 4 of Story Springboards:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-3-art-of.html

And here's an index to a few:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/index-post-to-art-and-craft-of-story.html

Remember, most often the Story Idea precedes the building of the world in which the story is a plausible (maybe inevitable) Event.

Not all writers (or not every project of any given writer) begin with Story or Character, but it is vastly common among the most prolific Romance writers.  Romance is about the Characters and how they Relate to each other.  Well, for that matter, so is "War" -- and that is another reason science fiction and romance genres are such a natural fit.

My collection of answers to the question of why WE believe in the HEA (while so many others just don't) includes examinations of fictional Worlds and their structures, the nature of Reality, the nature of Happiness, and perhaps most important the concept of "ever after."

We've been working on how to create a Romance between a Human and an Alien that is plausible to readers who disbelieve the HEA for some while.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/09/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-16.html

Previous parts of Theme-Worldbuilding Integration are indexed here:

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

We have discussed, under Theme-Symbolism Integration, why it is that we cry at weddings.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/08/theme-symbolism-integration-part-3-why.html

That entry has links to the two previous parts of that series on symbolism.

So we've been assembling the tools to discuss the vast schism in our real world between those who expect "life" to have a Happily Ever After and those who know for a fact that there is no such thing as an HEA.

Now we have to survey our everyday real world and the prevailing beliefs guiding thinking and the prevailing thinking shaping beliefs.

Remember the theory that in every Man there is a Hidden Woman, and in every Woman there is a Hidden Man.  In other words, both polarities are available to every human (might not be true of Aliens).

And remember the occult theory that Gender is a property of Soul -- Souls come in masculine and feminine, and as the Soul descends into the body in stages (from conception, through 12 or 13 years or so of growth) the Soul shapes the body.  These two theories of "what" a human is generate a vast number of themes and their attending conflicts, all pre-packaged to become perfect Romance Novels.

If the human social schisms were cleanly divided along gender lines, all women would be on one side of the HEA battle and all men on the other.  Since that is not the way it is, what is actually going on?

Why do some people believe that what they've never observed nevertheless exists, and some people believe that if they can't observe it, it does not exist.  Worse, that if they can't see it, then it is impossible.

We see humans divide themselves on every issue right along that idea of what is real and what is not  -- religion vs science, HEA vs HFN, Freedom of Speech vs Don't Offend Me, Freedom to Bear Arms vs. You Must Be Prevented From Attacking Me Because Of Course You Would If Armed.

How many have observed Science discarding settled scientific theories, yet believe the latest is the last, firm and absolutely true truth?  How many have observed Religions splitting, reforming, founding new branches?  How many have been the target of a madman/woman with a gun?   You may see it on YouTube or TV but how do you know its "real?"

YouTube videos that go viral are often professionally shot and edited, a secret that few know.  Also few know the secret that "demonstrators" who show up with signs and rotten tomatoes to "protest" something actually are recruited and paid for the job.

We do not live in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get world.

Just look at the Political Candidates who hire image consultants and speech writers, makeup artists, (Botox is making a fortune) and even a specialist to go buy clothing and get it altered to fit, to be worn only once.  The package presented for voters to choose does not resemble what's inside the package. You can't see what's inside the package, but you are supposed to "believe" it is what you want or prefer.  You are supposed to believe that the packaging is Reality because it is "realistic."

Note how Belief In The UnObserved appears as the rationalization for an attitude on both sides of the schism, the side that believes what can not be proven and the side that flatly refuses to believe anything is real if they have not observed it.  Any given individual human (not Alien) can be on different sides of this schism on different issues and not feel any lack of intellectual integrity.

One very important schism of the 21st Century is over whether what can't be observed is real.

For example Global Warming.  There are those who accept the numbers as observations and "settled science" and thus the phenomenon as Real (because science is never wrong), and those to whom numbers are way too easily concocted out of imagination, forged, or misinterpreted and so are not proof of Reality.

This is the schism that divides us on the issue of belief and knowledge.

One depiction of Reality attributes Knowledge to the Masculine and Belief to the Feminine.  So the schism besetting our National and International politics is the old Battle of the Sexes issue of "what is reality?"

"My feelings are Real!" vs "I know what I'm talking about!"

Do modern men today believe in the HEA as a real goal in life?

It's obvious from the burgeoning Romance field that a huge fraction of women do, and a lot of men as well.

So why doesn't everyone know (not believe but know) that "life" well lived leads to a long stretch of Happily Ever After years -- despite the size of the challenges before you during youth (18-30 are the peak years of peak challenge usually).  After 30, people tend to confront challenges (Conflict of a novel) using previously acquired and tested skills.  Everything that has happened, happens again, only this time you have the where-with-all to deal.

Humans on one side of the schism view the real world from the angle of, "If I just had X, Y, Z, then X, Y and Z would make me happy."  XYZ can be house, car, job, or it might be wife, kids, great vacations, or $7,000 suits, diamond cuff links and the respect I'm due.  Or alternatively, maybe "If I just had enough money, I'd be happy."  They "know" because they've seen people who have those "things" who are quite clearly "happy."

Humans on the other side of the schism view the real world from the angle of, "Wow, look at this amazing world full of glorious surprises and magnificent people! Life is such fantastic fun!"

In other words, some people deem Happiness to be a product of what happens to them, or their situation, or possessions. Other people deem Happiness to be a product of what they do in life, or give in life, or observe in life.

Both see Happiness as real, but identify the emotion's origin differently.

Many human cultures have enshrined this wisdom in various aphorisms.  Even those who seek "things" and "wealth" expecting it to "make" them happy know with their minds that things don't make happiness.  What they don't know is that Happiness Makes Things.

Happiness is a force, a simmering and muted Joy, that comes from deep down inside a human being and emanates outwards into their environment, creating and shaping that environment.  Things don't "happen to them."  Rather, "they happen to things."

We all know the Great Novels depicting the contented, glowing satisfaction that can envelope a household ostensibly impoverished of "things" where a good marriage creates fine children who go on to do great things in the world.

That is the President Abraham Lincoln legend -- log cabin, learning to read and study law by firelight, becoming President, freeing the slaves, being assassinated.

We have had Presidential Candidates galore bragging about their poverty-stricken origins and meteoric rise.

Poverty as a badge of honor -- or poverty as an excuse never to contribute to the world.

Same schism we've been talking about - the poor, living in poor neighborhoods see nobody who has succeeded to become not-poor.  Half of them know for a fact that's because there is no way to succeed (because if there were a way, they would see it), and the other half believe there must be a way, and if there is not then they'll create one.  Some of those found drug cartels, others become tech company CEO's or Senators.  Half can't be stopped because they believe, and the other half can't be started because they know.

It is amazing how many do succeed.  Most of us know how dispiriting grinding poverty is.

http://www.nature.com/news/poverty-linked-to-epigenetic-changes-and-mental-illness-1.19972

We've all read tons of novels about the poor little rich boy - the wastrel and ne'er do well, son of a Duke who gambles away the family fortune.  It's classic for a reason - it is real, it happened, it still happens.

So starting out with the presence or absence of wealth does not correlate with productivity and stability in life.

When we talk about the "Happily Ever After" we are referring to a Steady State -- a stable condition that does not change despite events.  It's not an absence of Events that characterizes the HEA years, but the inability of Events to change the state of "Happiness."

Think about that.  The HEA is about a Happiness that is not caused BY Events, and does not prevent Events (adverse and otherwise) from occurring.  The Happiness comes from within and is stable because it is not caused by "stuff" that is possessed, status, social standing, or reputation.

The HEA is a steady state.

In Chemistry, this is called Buffering - a buffered solution contains a reserve of chemicals that will absorb any acid tossed into the solution and convert the acid to a neutral, and other chemicals that will absorb any base tossed into the solution and convert that to a neutral.  The Buffered Solution will be measured at the same pH regardless of what is tossed into it.  It APPEARS stable.  You can measure it.  You can identify the numbers precisely.  You can see for a fact that it is stable.  It isn't. Its reserves get used up neutralizing whatever is tossed into it, so eventually its pH will change.

Life is like that.  Stability is only apparent.

Viewed from outside, a stable situation may seem unchanging even though it is really Buffered.

The HEA is like that buffered solution.  With enough stress, change is required.  But because of the Happiness being sourced within, not without, the emotional resources to make those changes are available.

So a person who has little or nothing, a person going through an impoverished stage of life (college student, student-loan years) (or living a whole life in that stage, never making it to college) may look at people who have a stable-seeming suburban life/job/kids/pets/mortgage/cars/ lifestyle and deem that the lifestyle makes them Happy because it is so stable (while the impoverished always have good reasons to feel threatened).

The people who have all those "things" and don't feel Happy may seek to acquire more things because they know people who have more and seem (from the outside) happier. Since they can see that it is so, they therefore know that it is so.  Just get more and be happy.


People who have reached a Happily Ever After plateau in life may take such pleasure in their "things" that they deem their happiness caused by the things.

You can construct Aliens who have this same schism -- or perhaps see their world and lives from a different angle.

Even humans have another way of looking at the world, but it involves a different concept of what a human being is, what the world is, and how humans and the world fit together into such a seamless whole that we can't figure out what happiness is, where it comes from, or how to acquire our fair share.

This would be termed the Spiritual view of the world, the view of the world where a Human is an ape-body hosting a Divine Spark of a Soul not just a collection of neurons subject to epigenetic modification by Events.

Thus Romance Genre is built upon the concept of the Soul Mate.

Because science fiction romance is "romance" genre, the worlds we use are built on the concept that romance is the primary precondition to marriage -- "I love you" and "Will you marry me" are generally at or near the END of the typical Romance novel.

So if the concept of the Soul (which nobody can see or measure, so we can only believe in it) seems un-realistic to a particular reader, the concept of the Soul Mate will be nonsense, and the entire foundation of the Happily Ever After crumbles to a painful Happily For Now.  The next incoming Event will knock the couple off their Happiness pinnacle and plunge them into more angst and agony.

But science fiction and fantasy readers, especially Paranormal Fantasy readers, are accustomed to believing six impossible things before breakfast.

If you can induce suspension of disbelief in your readers, you can draw them into a world you have built where Souls do exist, and Soul Mates do find each other and live happily ever after, not in the absence of adverse Events but despite that adversity, perhaps even relishing adversity.

It is tricky to write like that because you, the writer, must know what beliefs your reader holds dear and how to get that reader to suspend disbelief.

Try this approach.

Suppose your target reader is convinced there exists no such thing as a Happily Ever After because no couple he/she has ever known seems to live that way.

Perhaps you can sell that reader on the hypothesis that the HEA state of Life can be created, perhaps magically or perhaps by Computer Dating Service, Time Travel, Dimension Travel, or some other device.

You then have to explain to this reader why he/she can't observe any real people living in the HEA state right now.

One answer is well known in an old traditional religion, and it is privacy.

Here is a 30 minute video of an explanation of Jewish marriage ceremony customs that explains how essential to Happily Ever After is the establishment of 3 Private Spaces -- the woman's personal private space, the man's personal private space, and the Couple's very well defended personal private space.

http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/3343913/jewish/Secrets-of-the-Chupah.htm

This video explains the way that personal, individual sovereignty is the bedrock necessity for the forming of stable community (where, in this case, community is the married couple).  Remember "stable" is the Characteristic most identified with the HEA.

10 minutes into the video, the lecturer uses the term soul mate.

25 minutes into the video he discusses the 3-rings I'm using as a model below.

It is a much better constructed essay than any I've ever written. It sticks to the point, where I never do.

It is a 30 minute video, but worth every minute if you are irked by how hard it is to get readers to accept the HEA as plausible.

The solution to that problem is in that video -- but the fellow speaking probably has no idea what he's said.  Here is some of how I think it can be used in a Romance novel aimed at HEA-skeptics.

The individual, personal separateness maintained during all the years of marriage is here explained not as inimical to togetherness, but as the essential component of togetherness and to unconditional love.

Unconditional love (watch the video for the explanation of it in Marriage) generates "happiness."

Happiness is the outward flowing force that shapes the couple's world.  No incoming Event can alter the state of "happiness." because happiness does not originate without, does not come in from outside, but emanates from inside.

He's talking about forming a dwelling for the Love that Conquers All.

The description of the symbols of this ceremony can be used to explain to the disbeliever in the HEA that Happiness is not dependent on finding exactly the right person to marry, or on hammering the new spouse into the desired image, but on making the person you marry your Soul's Mate.

The Soul Mate condition is a creation, the result of a mutual and arduous effort on the parts of two people, who create that condition by respecting each other's personal privacy.

Not just any random pair can make a marriage, so a great deal of high precision discrimination is necessary to find a solid match.  But humans being humans, nobody's perfect, and parts match while other parts clash.  The point of the arranged marriage is not lack-of-clashing-parts, but rather stability of the Couple and their home, to raise children well.  Stability is the point, and it rests on privacy.

The secret sauce, the ingredient that forges all human Relationships, is Privacy.

What goes on between these walls stays between these walls.  When you come inside these walls, you leave your work outside with your muddy boots.  (see House of Zeor)

Personal sovereignty and personal privacy is being eroded in modern life, and concurrently we can see the deterioration of families, of marriages.  Is there a cause-effect relationship between those observations? You can build a number of Worlds around answers to that question, each to house stories with vastly divergent themes.  Study our current Reality, rip your stories from recent Headlines.

For example, one famous incident, way back at the end of June 2016, illustrates how Public Necessity now obliterates personal privacy and personal sovereignty.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/lawsuit-disabled-woman-injured-security-airport-40283511

---------quote------------

The lawsuit says an alarm went off as she and her mother were going through a security checkpoint operated by the Memphis International Airport Police Department and the Transportation Safety Administration. Hannah Cohen became disoriented by the alarm and the security workers' attempts to search her, the lawsuit says.

"The security personnel failed to recognize that she was confused because of her obvious disability and was unable to cooperate with the search," Cohen's lawyers, Kelly Pearson and William Hardwick, wrote in the lawsuit.

Her mother, Shirley Cohen, said she tried to tell TSA agents about her daughter's disability, but she was kept away by police.

"She's trying to get away from them but in the next instant, one of them had her down on the ground and hit her head on the floor. There was blood everywhere," Shirley Cohen told WREG-TV.

The lawsuit alleges the security personnel assaulted Hannah Cohen at the checkpoint, "causing her physical and emotional injury as well as emotional injury" to her mother.

Hannah Cohen was arrested, but the charges were later dropped. ...
--------end quote-------

Why would a TSA Agent make such an error?  Of course, later in the TSA's official (lawyer written) defense, lots more comes to light.

But we're not after facts, here.  We are ripping a Headline to use for story material.

We have a society where a complete stranger can forcibly (legally) lay hands on a person without any indication that the person is guilty of a crime, in fact where indications are that she is innocent of crime (though possibly a dupe of a suicide bomber).

The theoretical concept behind TSA "screening" (search all the innocent in case there's one maybe guilty among them) is Guilty Until Proven Innocent.  In fact, Law Enforcement has moved over the last few decades from removing criminals from circulation to preventing criminals from doing crimes, therefore leaving them in circulation.

Theory was always that it's better to let some criminals get away with crimes than to inconvenience an innocent person.

The innocent miscreant who did something by accident won't do it again.  The criminal will definitely do it again, and more boldly and carelessly, and therefore be caught and removed from circulation.  Law Enforcement need not worry about missing a guilty person, but only about inconveniencing the innocent.

Society can afford to take the damage from the few that get away.  This idea is based on the feeling of solid families firmly living the HEA, experiencing many adverse Events that do not alter their Happiness.

With the disintegration of the nuclear family, the perception dominating society is completely reversed.  We get happiness from things and status, and lose it by losing things and status -- a single criminal action can destroy our country, our American Dream of the HEA.

The theory that Law Enforcement can let a few criminals get away rather than inconvenience the innocent is completely reversed now.

Now Law Enforcement only worries about missing one, not about disrupting the lives of the innocent.  Just imagine how your Alien visitor sees that.

Think about Innocent Until Proven Guilty in terms of "believe what you can not see vs. know only what you can see."

You can believe a Guilty person is Innocent, and can know Guilt only by proof you can see.  Today, Law Enforcement now knows you are Guilty even if they can't see any proof, so they have the right to search you, despite your right to be not-searched.  The rights of the individual count for nothing before the fears (imaginary or not) of the Group. We can't afford to experience even one Adverse Event because it will destroy Happiness.  We must be safe from Events that might happen.

The right of the Group, society, people, the crowd, to be sure there are no bombs on you completely sets aside your right to be not-searched.  This is true of NSA email scanning, and even CDC disease monitoring, or Obamacare mandated screening for diseases you don't have.  You must test everyone to find the few problem people.  Guilty until proven innocent.  Not only that, but the burden of proving your innocence is on you, not the accuser.

The old legal theory of "Innocent Until Proven Guilty" comes from the Ancient Greeks where logic established that it is not possible to prove a negative.

You can prove that something does exist, but you can not prove that it does not exist.

Hence the problem with proving Souls exist.

Here is another item on the Ancient Greeks and Happiness:

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/a-better-kind-of-happiness
Nobody has figured a way to prove that souls exist, and since you can prove a positive, surely if Souls exist then we can prove it.

Because we have not proven Souls (and thus Soul Mates) do exist, probably about half of humanity is convinced that Souls do not exist.  The rest believe Souls exist without seeing them, or believe they do see them in the eyes of others.

The thesis is that you can not prove a negative, and mere lack of proof of the positive is not indicative of the negative being true.  Therefore, in a court of law, the accused does not have to prove innocence, but the prosecution must prove guilt.  At a TSA checkpoint, however, you must prove your innocence.

The schism that divides humanity between those who believe in what they can not see, and those who know only what they can see, is not always a 50/50 divide as it is today.  So you can create Aliens who have say, 10% Believers who understand humans in terms of Souls (therefore as possible mates) and 90% who know humans have no Souls because they can see from our behavior how soulless we are.

In other words, perhaps 10% of that Alien population would understand Innocent Until Proven Guilty.  They would view this TSA incident with genuine horror just as most of us do.  The woman was brain damaged, not soulless.

BTW the TSA's immediate rebuttal was that the burden of proper behavior rested with the brain impaired woman who should have called ahead to find out what the screening protocols were.  It so happened, in this one incident, the brain impaired woman (who had just had a cancerous tumor removed from her brain) was traveling with her mother (whose protestations were ignored by TSA).

But the impaired woman was 19 years old, and thus dealt with by TSA as an autonomous adult.

What has this to do with a Realistic Happily Ever After?

This incident illustrates what "realistic" means to those readers who don't believe in Souls because they are not proven to exist.  The woman's innocence was not proven, therefore her innocence did not exist.

We all are focused on preventing explosions and shootings in crowds.

We want to be certain we can go where we choose and not be murdered.  How can we not fear Terrorists?  They're very good at making people afraid, very professional at it because they get paid to instill fear in us.  These days even phoning in a bomb threat can divert a plane or cause it to gain a military escort.  So you can see, they have succeeded.  Why?  That tactic would never have worked on the USA of a hundred years ago - maybe 150 years ago.  What has changed?

The numbers clearly show an increased divorce rate, single parents, adults who were raised by single parents.

Of course, the misery of being unable to get a divorce and the even greater misery of unwanted children, has to be figured into the worldbuilding for an Alien Romance.  By targeting and solving those two problems (which admittedly desperately needed solving if we are to call ourselves human), may (or may not) have done collateral damage in unexpected ways.  What if your Aliens have evolved in such a way that solving those social problems does not destabilize their HEA?

So now we have the social problem of voters wanting to force their politicians to make them feel safe. Remember, this is an exercise in ripping story material from headlines.

Realistically, because some humans hide in crowds of humans then murder a bunch of the humans in the crowd (what if some in the crowd were visiting Aliens?), therefore we must search each and every member of that crowd to find the potential miscreants, and we'll know them by the weapons they carry.

Anyone carrying a weapon, or even just a pocket knife, is obviously a miscreant bent on murder of strangers.  So to find that one murderous person, every single person in the crowd (maybe attending a political rally or a concert) must be thoroughly searched.

Who should do the searching?  Law Enforcement -- i.e. government, crafted by politicians who have been elected on their promises to make everyone feel safe.

We discussed government and its power structures here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/10/alien-sexuality-part-3-corporate-greed_25.html

Government used to be tasked with securing our perimeter so we can function freely within it.

But since government has been unable to secure the Nation's borders from the current pop-up threats, we have now tasked government with the job of invading our privacy to keep us safe from having our privacy invaded.  Try explaining that to your visiting Alien diplomats while a TSA agent violates the being's sexual private parts.

What has this to do with marriage?

Did you take the time to watch that video?  It is full of story springboards.

Here is the URL again:

http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/3343913/jewish/Secrets-of-the-Chupah.htm

Now back to the video.  Here is a man.  Here is a woman.  They each acknowledge each other's personal space, personal sovereignty, individual foibles.  Together, in cooperation, they CREATE a third space, the Couple.  This new composite has its own space, its privacy, (and foibles).

This marriage between distinctively imperfect people will be solid, stable, "ever after" and at the same time, as a product of that stability, it will radiate Happiness, a force which shapes the surrounding reality.

Happiness does not come from "things" -- but rather "things" come from Happiness.

Happiness is the upwelling, out-flowing force that enriches the world.  It is a creative force, the Divine Love that is Unconditional and manifests as spikes of Joy exploding from a sea of Happiness filling a vessel fabricated from contentment.

This entire Rube Goldberg device called Marriage rests on one thing and one thing only -- privacy.

Marriage rests on three separate and special zones of PRIVACY.

Listen to that video.

The implications of this are stupendous.

The whole concept of the Happily Ever After ending as a "Realistic" goal of real people depends entirely on the establishment and maintaining of Privacy.

Examine how the place that privacy has in our world has changed over the last say, 100-150 years.

Think about what changes in privacy practices (and all the computer hacking related items) has in determining the course of life in today's world if this ancient practice of establishing a zone of privacy is soundly rooted in human nature.

Human Nature might be understood as the privacy zone of the Soul, the privacy zone of the Body, and the privacy zone of the Couple, Soul-Body=Human.

Think about how all this might be viewed by Aliens.

The incident with the brain damaged young woman is a great illustration of how primal bodily privacy is.

It is easy to imagine ( imagine, without basis in the facts of the actual incident) that a person in a brain fog of confusion simply reacts on a primal level to hands intruding into her PRIVATE SPACE, her bodily privacy, reacts as if being attacked by a rapist, and reacts by trying to get away (despite debilities).

Imagine what that intrusion would feel like.

Imagine how you would feel bewildered, in pain and bleeding from falling to the hard floor, then being separated and alone (she was arrested, but we're only imagining the arrest involved separating her; as a 19 year old, she would plausibly have been separated, but this is a story, and that is reality) -- so in our fiction she's alone with strangers in a strange place and has no idea why.

Remember all the posts where we've discussed "ripped from the headlines" -- this news item about the TSA incident is a headline and we are now ripping out the facts, ignoring the truth so we can tell our own story.

Now, imagine because of this news report on her trouble, she gets invited into some experimental stem cell treatment for her brain damage, her brain issues just miraculously clear up, and she fully understands this world and remembers what happened.

If you're doing an Alien Romance, of course the stem cell treatment is donated to Earth by the visiting Aliens, and because of publicity of the incident, she is chosen as the first experimental subject.  And she probably falls for the Alien who shepherds her through the treatment process.

But now she understands what was done to her by the TSA agent, and knows it was done in a perfectly legal way by humans who were convinced they were righteous, doing Good in the name of Good, keeping the public safe, and incidentally getting paid for it.

From the safety of a marriage to an Alien, what does she do?  If she has an HEA with the Alien, does she risk losing it?  If she's miserable, does she see an action that could make her happy?

The problem is half of humanity (that schism that has a mirror image among the Aliens) does not believe in the HEA because HEA only occurs when surrounded by those 7 circles of PRIVACY.

From the outside, you can not observe an HEA in progress.

HEA can not happen where it can be observed.  It can exist only in PRIVATE.

The HEA grows into existence within the privacy of marriage, but the kind of marriage within which the complete sovereignty of the individuals is observed.

As the video defined it, marriage is about Trust - the trust that privacy will not be breached.

The TSA, FBI, CIA and other alphabet agencies have been legally empowered to breach that privacy -- maybe because voters don't think privacy is important.

Small wonder that half of humanity doesn't believe in the HEA - you can't see it because it ceases to exist when you look.  Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle applied to the Soul?

Now, Human society is composed of the nuclear family.  Families amalgamate into tribes composed of related families.  Tribes amalgamate into larger groupings, counties, states, and Nations.

National Federal government rests on the privacy of marriage -- hence a spouse can not be forced to testify against a spouse, or an individual against self.  The whole house of cards comes tumbling down without that pure and absolute Trust that Privacy is honored.

But lets look at the larger social structures (remember we're writing Alien Romance).

Humans marry each other, creating the nuclear unit.

The Units likewise "marry" each other, in that same 3-way-circle structure described in the video.

First individual privacy is guaranteed, then two of the units create a new zone of privacy around them.  The Tribe exists within a circle of privacy created by trust in each other.

The Tribes then "marry" each other -- same process, two private individuals create a third private space, perhaps a County containing them both.  Counties marry each other to form States.  States marry each other to form The United States.  Eurozone seems to be a failed marriage - maybe because privacy has been violated.

Marriage is a business contract just like cities making counties and counties making states - all under constitutions with officers and bylaws.  A single couple's marriage is a contract, a business contract with value exchanged.  The same process creates States and Nations.

That is the theoretical basis of State's Rights -- each state is a zone of PRIVACY which exists because of Trust that privacy won't be violated, and because of that Trust the State or Nation produces Happiness which has the side-effect of producing riches.

In other words, the idea behind State's rights (history books aside) can be summed up by that video explaining Marriage as a process of establishing privacy within a bond of trust.

That's why our money says In God We Trust.

Without that trust in our privacy, without a personal perimeter into which government does not go, there is no family, and thus no Nation.

With that trust in our privacy being respected (even or especially by the TSA) we generate happiness that flows into the environment and creates the love that conquers all.

Unconditional love requires privacy to conquer all.  Consider, the IRS is also a hated monster -- its mission is to invade our privacy and even the private space of a marriage (filing jointly - your spouse cheats; you can go to jail).  We likely would not hate or distrust government if it didn't invade our privacy.

There is a huge difference between privacy and secrecy.  You could make a case for the idea that they are not even related.

Criminals keep their activities secret. Normal people guard their privacy.

It's not that simple, of course, humans being human, but entire thematic structures can be built from the nuances of these two concepts, private and secret.

Just look at Hillary Clinton's FBI investigation results.  Intent made the difference since she accidentally didn't keep her private email secret enough to conform with the law.  But it is not a felony to commit a felony by accident (or we'd all be in prison).  She wanted her privacy and saw no reason the law could interfere with her legitimate need for privacy.

Secrecy vs Privacy is a huge theme source for romance.  (Do watch that video.)

Here is more on thematic structures and love.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/01/falling-in-love.html

And here are two in the Believing In Happily Ever After series:

Standardization vs Customization:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-3.html

and

Nesting Huge Themes Inside Each Other:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-4.html

There are now 7 parts to Believing In The Happily Ever After.

The Index post goes up on this blog Tuesday, November 8, 2016
The link will be
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/index-to-believing-in-happily-ever-after.html
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Why Every Novel Needs A Love Story - Part 2 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Why Every Novel Needs A Love Story
Part 2
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

In Part 1 of this series
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/07/why-every-novel-needs-love-story-part-1.html
we noted how the signature of a Strong Character is that the Character "arcs" -- or changes their emotional responses to situations because of some life-lesson learned "the hard way" in the "school of hard knocks."

Characters get pummeled by Events you create.  They learn from the Events (the plot) and they do not necessarily learn the best or most correct lesson the first time you hit them with an Event.

Characters that are strong at the beginning of the story get pummeled with Events until they break  -- think of Spock crying alone in the briefing room.  Leonard Nimoy knew Spock's strength had to be broken in order to engage viewer interest. 

Granite strength all by itself is not interesting.  So writers break their strongest characters.

Start with a weak character, someone gripped by the "I can't" or "I'm doing all I can, so how can you expect more of me?" attitude, hammer that character to pulverize them, and chronicle their path to becoming a strong character.  That's Character Arc.

So, Strong Characters can be weak at the beginning of the Arc, and the strength is revealed as you hammer them into becoming Strong.

What exactly is it that writers hammer at in either the strong or weak character that changes them, that morphs them along an Arc?

What causes people to change in real life?  What causes people to start to behave differently, and seem "out of character" for a while, until friends and family get used to the new person? 

What changes in life that re-formulates a person's behavior? 

I submit that the easiest attribute of a Character for a writer to depict as Arcing, or changing in a way that readers can see as realistic, is the ability to Love.

That is the "wall" that Events hammer at to Arc a character.

It is the ability to establish and maintain Relationships that distinguishes the Happy person from the miserable person.  We draw our strength of character from our "stance" among our people, our family, our co-workers, our buddies, our spouse, our children, our distant relatives, and just friends made via organizations.

How many times have you seen the story of the lone-gunman who shoots up a crowd and nobody expected it because "he kept to himself" and "he seemed like a nice guy" but he had no close friends (or the ones he had were likewise disconnected.)

As humans, we need to belong, to connect, to be surrounded by layers upon layers of people who know intimately, less well, distantly, and just feel general kinship with because we share a fandom, a reading taste, a craft etc.  We speak of "the Music World" and "the Golf World" -- and we say, "Welcome to my world." 

We live in "worlds" composed of layers of associates.

The entre into such a "world" is via the close, immediate, intertwined, personal Relationship.

Enemies, Adversaries, a policeman's quarry (think TV Series THE FUGITIVE), relationships can be incredibly intimate and even replace true love for a time.

Social networking has leveraged that layered-worlds structure of human life into a profitable business where you are their product which they sell to advertisers.

We are creatures of Relationship, embedded in a physical world composed of intricate layers of interlaced relationships.  Think of the way genetics has evolved -- almost all life on Earth shares basic building block genes.  (almost since there are non-carbon single-cell life near hot vents in the bottom of the ocean) 

Most all life on Earth is genetically related, which is why we can use animals to test new drugs and why we shudder at the mere thought of doing that!  We are all of one piece.

But we don't see that, at least not at the surface of our awareness.  We don't see into another person's emotional life, the internal structure of another person's decision making process, their most dearly held values, their unconscious assumptions about what is right and what is wrong.

That realm of the unconsciously held Value System is where the writer works.

Writers probe, explore, learn, and map their own unconscious minds, especially the Value System they imbibed with Mother's Milk.  We acquire our first values from our parents, but as life goes on, we acquire more layers of values around those.

Sometimes the later value acquisitions logically contradict earlier ones, but we hold onto all of them as our OWN -- we identify with the wild and incompatible mix of values we have created and call it our Identity.

Thus when a person's Values are attacked by another person (who may or may not have different values), it feels like a threat to LIFE ITSELF.  It feels like a threat to existence.  People will tolerate starvation or being shot at by hostiles better than they will having their unconscious Values contradicted.

Yes, mere words can trigger a counter-attack as if life and existence were at stake.

Politics and Religion are two topics that are rooted in that first learned, unconscious value system that most likely has been overlaid by Values acquired in college, which have been overlaid by Values acquired on the job. 

That's why they are explosive topics for family gatherings (and wondrous sources of Conflict that can advance a Plot). 

Today, in our modern world, Politics and Religion are mixing at depths not seen since the Middle Ages when The Church basically ran the Governments of Europe.

The Crusades were a show-don't-tell manifestation of the mixing of Politics (Kings) with Religion (The Cross). 

Today, the explosive mix is Science vs. Religion.  What sane person could possibly reject Evolution or want to teach Creationism in schools?  See?  "sane" -- "If you don't share my Values, you are not a Person." 

In other words, we tend to work on the assumption that the only people whose opinions count are the people who share our Values.

But nobody shares anyone's Values.  As described above, each individual person accumulates layers upon layers of different values and morphs the disparate mess into some kind of ball of wax which they use as their Identity. 

Each of us is unique -- but we want to associate only with those who are identical to us, at least in our intimate relationships. 

As noted in Part 1, look closely at the TV Series SUITS.  Suits works via the way the senior (Harvey Specter) sees himself in the junior (Mike Ross).  When Mike doesn't do what Harvey would do, Harvey is uncomfortable and acts out.

Now back to the Romance Novel, which is what this blog is all about. 

Consider the various ideas of what Love is. 

You will find Romance depicted as about co-dependence, as about feelings only, as about bodily functions only, as about paying attention only to me.  And all of these variations are real, and all matter, and all of them are necessary ingredients in Romance.

It is very true that you can have amazing Romance without a trace of Love at all.

"Love" (with a capital L) is a spiritual thing that transcends our innate insanities.  Love with a capital L is an experience of the Soul that changes the Soul -- i.e. that causes Character to Arc.

Real change happens when channels of the Personality open to Love.

That happens under different circumstances for different people at different times of Life.  Sometimes it is religious conversion, sometimes encountering a senior mentor, sometimes the birth of your first child, sometimes it is finding your Soul Mate.

People (and Characters) change not by becoming someone else, not by losing or gaining abilities or Talents, but by re-arranging their characteristics.

Thus a Character Arc Event causes an aggressive person who is likely to solve any problem by putting out a Hit on the opposition into someone who behaves more like Harvey Specter in SUITS and leverages the other person's emotional weaknesses.

The Aggression is still there, but the channel is different.

An alcoholic might morph into someone who eats or smokes too much, but holds a job and is kind to his kids.

All the traits remain, but the emphasis and utilization changes. 

Why does that happen? 

One of the key ingredients that forms our crazy-quilt pattern of Values is our Relationships.  There is a well studied trait of human perception (see the TV Series Perception) that causes us to see ourselves in others.

When you hate someone, when someone just plain drives you crazy, and you go around with an inner dialogue counting their failings and what they should do about it, then very likely (not always, but most of the time) you are seeing yourself in that person.

Other people are the mirror in which we see our own reflection.

But like with a mirror, you see a reversal of the image, and you can see what is behind you (e.g. in your subconscious).  You see deeper into yourself, into the dark underside of yourself, because the other person is so very different from you.

You see their faults, and their faults are visible because they are different.

Writers leverage that common human perception by creating Characters who are so very different from the reader that the reader is barely aware of the similarity.  When it strikes the reader just right, that difference allows the reader to identify with the character and walk in their moccasins. 

So people react emotionally to other people according to how they love or hate themselves.  But as noted above, Identity is a pearl composed of layers of contradiction accreted around a sharp-grain of pain that caused the acquisition of a Value.

That pain might be a parental smack, a deprivation from a toy, a forced-sharing with a sibling, and rewards of kindness, love, joy, celebration. 

Right and Wrong and what is more important than what (i.e. Values) are absorbed from parents via what the parents do, not what the parents say -- so Values are non-verbal and conveyed with a Sharp Pain that forces the pain to be wrapped by a Value that will henceforth prevent that Pain. 

So when we see someone who is Wrong -- we react to that wrongness.  How we react, what we do about Wrong People, is influenced by our ability to Love our own Self -- to admire our pearls that encase our Pain and create Values.

If we Love ourselves because we know how we have just barely managed to cope with our Pain, we are able to see others struggling (and sometimes failing) to cope with their Pain.  We know that sometimes a Pain does not get encased in a Pearl of Values - a lesson is not (yet) learned and successfully applied to life.

Lessons can be rejected, maybe never learned, because of some other Belief that is in the way, that contradicts or conflicts and thus causes Truth to be rejected. 

People who do not (yet) love themselves, see nothing but their own reflection in the mirrors of the people around them, and thus are in effect isolated, alone, unloved, and frustrated.  Such people may compensate by narcissism, which others interpret as self-love. 

How does a writer depict people caught in a House of Mirrors life where all they can see in those around them are hateful traits? 

Dialogue is the answer.  How a Character speaks, what opinions so desperately need airing, what opinions (and the vocabulary to express them) burst out with loud urgency, and to whom those opinions are expressed (with what collateral damage), depicts the Character's inner conflict, inner story, and subconscious Values.

A Character's emotional life is revealed in Dialogue. 

Here is an example to study, from a piece of non-fiction analyzing our current real world situation. 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/16/1371324/-Adelson-and-Kristol-attempt-the-first-Liberum-Veto-in-US-history

The author is
 arendt 

-------quote from opening line----------
As the GOP sabotage and sedition continues, the US appears to be going the way of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth (P-LC) rather than the way of the Roman Empire.

If you know your history, this is not an insult; but, rather, a tragedy in progress. The P-LC was a powerful and progressive state during the early Reformation era, reaching its Golden Age in about 1575.

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

Note the sidling up to the chosen audience by characterizing an entire group of people "the GOP" as if they are all identical to one another.  This is a valid representation of what a person who lives a House of Mirrors existence actually sees in those around them -- no difference one to another, because they are all reflections of him/herself. 

The opening sentence here is brilliant in that it instantly and efficiently says, "Listen to me because I'm just like you." 

The rest of the historical thesis in this article is a brilliant analysis, considering the point of view. 

Take a Character who shares this writers contempt and disdain for those who see things differently and create some Events that would shatter his certainty that his view is the only laudable view.

It doesn't matter what views your Character holds, or opposes.  The writing exercise is to Depict a Conflict of Values and its Resolution. 

It will work better as a Novel if you choose some vast conflict of World Shattering importance that is utterly unrelated to the headlines of today.  Just lift out of this article the attitude of this writer -- not the content.

Your task is to create a Character who views Others with such contempt, then discovers that what he hates in them is actually inside himself, that he never perceived them at all.  As he comes to resolve his inner conflict, he begins the journey to being able to Love himself.

Where does that lead?  It will lead him to his Happily Ever After, but not in one or even a thousand steps.  Along the way, he will discover how those he held in contempt are actually struggling as he was.  He will find Love for them, and his way of speaking of them will change (his Character will Arc).

The changed attitude will not change the facts of the Situation, but it will open vistas of opportunity for different sorts of actions to change the facts.  (yes, it's a series of novels)

Once your Character understands how lovable his opposition is, even though they are flat out wrong, his actions will begin to be instructive rather than destructive, and solutions will appear that were never visible before.

The key to Character Arc is the introduction of Love which penetrates the Mirror Effect so that one Character can actually perceive what is inside another Character.  Thus begins all Relationship.

So every novel needs a love story, even if there is no Romance.  And every Romance, to create a realistic Happily Ever After needs a Love story -- the story of learning to Love yourself so that you can see through the mirror-surface and into the people around you.

That Love Story gives the fictional world the necessary verisimilitude to draw a reader into the Fantasy world.

Here are more posts on Alien Romance discussing verisimilitude, story arc, and Romance.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/index-post-to-art-and-craft-of-story.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/02/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-5.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/plot-subtext-integration-part-2-ruining.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com