alien romances

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Writing in Dark Times

Kameron Hurley's essay in the current LOCUS is the most overtly political piece I've ever read in that magazine:

Hurley writes in apocalyptic terms, as if we're now living in Mordor. In her view, "We are going to lose much in 2017," because "a darker power was elected into office in the United States by a slim minority." She laments, "I see that hopeful ray of light we have all been shining out into the world smothered once again in darkness during this latest backlash." She frames the recent election as one phase in the "long war between the light and the dark, between our better selves and our darker natures."

Even though ours isn't a political blog, I suppose there's no harm in mentioning that I also voted against Hurley's "darker power." I'm optimistic enough, though, to hope that the immediate future won't be quite so bad as she forecasts.

The central message of her essay, however, isn't to curse the darkness or declare that we're all doomed. Rather, she celebrates, as quoted above, the "hopeful ray of light" writers "have been shining out into the world." Speculative fiction has value because of "our hopeful stories, our ability to tell different futures." Science fiction and fantasy offer both cautionary tales (warning us against paths to potential dystopias) and images of better worlds we may transform into reality. Storytellers "create the narratives that help us all make sense of the world."

I would add a third valid function of speculative fiction, a temporary escape from the anxieties of mundane life into another world. Entertainment for its own sake, as a distraction that sends us back to "normal life" refreshed, is not to be scorned. Of course, using fantasy in this way might incur the charge of "escapism" in a negative sense. Indeed, we've all run into critics who dismiss ANY form of counter-factual fiction as "escapism." J. R. R. Tolkien answers this charge in "On Fairy Stories." Who's most likely to be obsessed with preventing escape? Jailers! As Tolkien says:

"Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it. In using escape in this way the critics have chosen the wrong word, and, what is more, they are confusing, not always by sincere error, the Escape of the Prisoner with the Flight of the Deserter. Just so a Party-spokesman might have labelled departure from the misery of the Führer's or any other Reich and even criticism of it as treachery."

To those who dismiss fantasy as "unrealistic" and therefore a waste of an adult's time, Tolkien provides this rebuttal (although he isn't addressing precisely that point):

"Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific verity. On the contrary. The keener and the clearer is the reason, the better fantasy will it make."

Or, as Puddleglum the Marshwiggle, imprisoned in the green witch's underground lair in C. S. Lewis's THE SILVER CHAIR, retorts to the witch's claim that her world is the only world that exists, "I'm going to live as much like a Narnian as I can even if there's no Narnia."

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Reviews 30 The Ghost At Beaverhead Rock by Carol Buchanan

Reviews 30

The Ghost At Beaverhead Rock

Carol Buchanan

Reviewed By Jacqueline Lichtenberg

The Ghost At Beaverhead Rock is a 522 page Historical Romance, but not at all typical of the Romance Genre. In fact, it is not so typical of the Historical genre either.

This novel is about what makes a man into a husband and what kind of man can not be transformed like that.

It is about the very serious stuff you find in Historicals as well as about the things you hardly ever find in Romance. And it is about what traits portend that a man will become a good father. All of this abstract (face it: boring) stuff is just background for the torrent of forces configuring the Territories into what will be the United States of today: what is an Economy?; what is Law?; what is Authority?

All of this is blended with a strong author's hand into a smooth reading, fast paced read you will work fast every day to get back to reading in the evening. Writers should analyze this book for scene and chapter structure, for pacing (rate of change of situation), for how Characterization is depicted using actions not description.

The Ghost is 4th in a series that has garnered some awards attention and deserves more. Lots more.

The previous novels are God's Thunderbolt, The Vigilantes of Montana, and Gold Under Ice.

Here are the Amazon links:

Book 1 - God's Thunderbolt
https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Thunderbolt-Vigilantes-Montana-Vigilante-ebook/dp/B0028AD8UE/

Book 2 - The Devil In The Bottle
https://www.amazon.com/Devil-Bottle-Vigilante-Quartet-Book-ebook/dp/B006H7I4AI/

Book 3 - Gold Under Ice
https://www.amazon.com/Gold-Under-Vigilante-Quartet-Book-ebook/dp/B003XVZAAS/

Book 4 - The Ghost At Beaverhead Rock
https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Beaverhead-Rock-Vigilante-Quartet/dp/0986420301/

Or you can find them at the author's website

http://carol-buchanan.com

Here are some posts I've done here previously about this series:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/05/social-networking-is-learning-tool.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/04/worldbuilding-building-fictional-but.html

And a Guest Post by Carol Buchanan:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-ghost-on-horseback-guest-post-by.html

So you see I've been following this series as it has developed, and it is literally a "can't put it down" read if you are interested in Science Fiction Romance.

Remember, Star Trek was sold as "Wagon Train To The Stars" -- a western set in space.

Science Fiction and Westerns or Historicals are kindred genres because they are about facing "The Unknown" and figuring out how to live and thrive in an alien environment.

In fact, come right down to it, marriage is itself a matter of pioneering an alien environment, a partnership between two strangers who think they know each other.

Pioneering is about moving into strange, mostly empty territory and figuring out how to create a government and an economy. Marriage often enters the empty territory of a two-person home which, little by little, adds children -- and every year of their lives is new territory.

So this Vigilantes series starts with a heart-felt Romance, wistful, ernest, and full of promise and insurmountable obstacles. And then the series challenges that marriage and re-creates it on new terms.

This story of a marriage is thematically parallel to the "marriage" of the new Western States into the Union, which at that time was being challenged by The Civil War which shattered families, brother against brother.

The series is set (mostly) in the West where gold was discovered, and depicts the way fighting over claims pitted men (and women) against each other.

It seems to me this is the story of a woman who "mines" a man's heart for the gold hidden in his depths, the incorruptible noble metal, soft and malleable hidden within brittle quartz.

This series is a solid example of how to apply the skills we have discussed in the series on Depiction and the series on Symbolism.

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

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

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Fake News? Fake History! (About Copyright)

My copyright enthusiasm has led me to take a free online course: Constitution 101 offered by Hillsdale College.
https://online.hillsdale.edu/course/con101/part02/lecture

Copyright is mentioned in the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8) but in my opinion, copyright is also an Intellectual Property right, and the constitution upholds the right to own property.

Certain opponents of copyright are alleged to have written such statements as: "We Jeffersonians know better. Copyright is not a natural right, entitled to protection at the expense of the public good."
Source:
https://thetrichordist.com/2016/12/08/academic-copyleftists-unintentionally-bolster-constructive-termination-charge-in-firing-of-register-of-copyrights/

The above link is exceptionally interesting. It is about how some academics who are hostile to the rights of musicians and songwriters especially (but, weakening of copyright for one group of creators opens the door to weaking copyright for all creators) rationalize the allegedly so-called retaliatory constructive termination of the recent Register of Copyrights, Maria Pallante.

"The public good" seems to be the excessive profitability of billion-dollar tech giants that stream or otherwise distribute music and other entertainment, and the "right" of members of the public to enjoy creative works as a perquisite that follows the subscription to- or purchase of certain apps or hardware or software.

Concerns have been expressed about the Library of Congress.
https://thetrichordist.com/2016/12/11/dr-haydens-library-of-congress-is-already-helping-big-tech-rip-off-creators-part-1-the-mass-noi-scam/

I would describe the Notice of Intent (NOI) Loophole as a variation on "orphan works". Remember the Hathi Trust project? The trick is that a big tech company that wishes to exploit ebooks or music without paying the author or songwriter simply "pretends" that they cannot locate the copyright owner or author. Therefore, under the "permissionless innovation" theory, they exploit the work and pay no one unless or until the copyright owner finds out about it on their own.

This is not the only problem. Allegedly, "...some in the anti-copyright crowd...are promoting the Library's recent deal with the Berkman Center's Digital Public Library of America to turn a digitized Library of Congress into a kind of feeder to Kickass Torrents with sovereign immunity..."

Given digitization, and the fact that it is mandatory for every copyright owner to donate 2 copies of the best of the best of their works, to the Library of Congress, that quote about feeding torrents is not so implausible. The Library of Congress appears keen to monetize and distribute what's in their collection, if one can extrapolate from what Maria Pallante was ordered to do.
https://thetrichordist.com/2016/10/25/arrogant-new-librarian-of-congress-told-register-of-copyrights-pallante-go-sell-t-shirts/

I appear to be the only skeptic about the USPTO push to discuss the Digital Marketplace. For those who wish to view videos of the entire day of events at the USPTO conference on on Friday, Dec 9th, 2016, follow this link:
https://livestream.com/uspto/DigitalMarketplace16?origin=digest&mixpanel_id=13d46f86c4b46-0398ebf1b7d5ac8-3d246e3a-1d4c00-13d46f86c4c1de&acc_id=8385860&medium=email

For those who merely want a book-related summary, there were relatively few mentions of books or ebooks during the day. Encouragingly, the focus seemed to be a genuine and positive concern for a system to ensure that "the internet" should know who owns rights to any type of intellectual property.

Speaker Trent McConaghy (of Blockchain) testified that he would like a Kayak-like (travel industry analogy, not watercraft) system presumably for finding the type of digital intellectual property that one desires at the best price.

Speaker Bill Rosenblatt (I think it was he who made this remark) bemoaned the fact that a Federal Judge (Denny Chin, as I recall) threw out the Google Book Settlement that would have established a Book Rights Registry. That Book Rights Registry would have been very helpful to authors and those who wished to exploit authors' books.

What worries me is, who would pay for any eventual registry? We know that it has been alleged that creative-works exploiters like Pandora and Spotify want music creators (songwriters and performers) to pay for their own music registry so the music services don't have to go to the trouble of locating rights owners in order to pay them. Would authors, musicians, photographers, models, etc have to subscribe in order to be in a registry?

And then, once one is in the registry (at least one could be found and paid), would authors be treated like The Turtles? Just as music that was written and originally performed before 1972 has been treated as if it was out of copyright, and is now being awarded lesser royalties than music written and performed since 1972, could something similar happen to book authors?

Here's how royalties could get reduced without copyright owners getting a voice.
https://thetrichordist.com/2016/12/02/good-news-sirius-xm-settles-pre-1972-with-turtles-bad-news-settlement-slashes-sound-recording-royalty-50/

But... the good news is, we can have a voice. Check out who is on the House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, and drop them a line. Maybe an anticipatory thank-you note for looking out for authors. :-)

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

Thursday, December 08, 2016

Human Redesign

In Heinlein's METHUSELAH'S CHILDREN, well-meaning, godlike aliens on a colony planet redesign the DNA of a human embryo to produce what they consider improvements, such as replacing fingers with tentacles; Lazarus Long's people react with horror instead of gratitude and hastily leave that world. Recently on Quora, someone posted a question about what changes you would make to improve the human reproductive process, if you had that power. Some suggestions offered were: give women the ability to end a pregnancy at will (maybe by resorbing the embryo, like rabbits) or pause a pregnancy in suspended animation until convenient, like kangaroos; separate the sexual function from the excretory function (presumably referring to males—the idea of placing those organs in completely different parts of the body goes way beyond tweaking with the human blueprint to making our anatomy downright alien); getting rid of menstrual periods (only a few mammals menstruate, so why can't we simply absorb the excess uterine lining the way other females apparently do?); allow people to transfer the embryo to the father, like seahorses.

Some changes I would wish for in an ideal world: Not only for pregnancy, but for human comfort in general, it would be nice if evolution had done a more efficient job of transforming us from quadrupeds to bipeds. Imperfect adaptation to walking upright leaves us subject to many uncomfortable conditions such as back, joint, and foot pains, hernias, and organ prolapse. For reproduction in particular, voluntary control of the process would solve many problems. Suppose women could ovulate or suppress ovulation at will? And if conditions of the pregnancy or the environment turned unfavorable, in this scenario they could resorb the embryo by an act of will, as mentioned above. It would also be convenient if men could produce erections, or suppress them, at will. For both sexes, a lot of anxiety would disappear if we could simply decide to have orgasms when desired. I'd like to have labor pains reduced to mild cramps, just enough discomfort to alert the woman that she's in labor. Why does dilation of the cervix have to hurt so much? At the actual delivery phase, a sensation of slight pressure would be enough to tell her to start pushing.

That last request might be impossible without a total restructuring of the human body, because of the compromises we already make between the sizes of the baby's head and the mother's pelvis. But, again, in an ideal world where we have voluntary control over physical processes and sensations, we could mentally suppress most of the discomfort associated with pushing out a full-term infant. Those compromises make another possible wish, that babies not be born so helpless, out of the question. Human intelligence means our offspring have large brains and large skulls, and the human female's pelvis can't grow much bigger while still allowing her to walk upright. That's why human babies are born so undeveloped; the size and lifespan of our species would lead us to expect our infants to stay in utero about twice as long as they do. In effect, a newborn baby is an extra-uterine fetus.

Given absolute power to alter human anatomy and physiology, what improvements would you make to the reproductive process? Or any of our physical attributes?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Tuesday, December 06, 2016

Depiction Part 22 - Depicting Alien Nostalgia With Symbolism

Depiction
Part 22

Depicting Alien Nostalgia With Symbolism

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

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

And here is a video ...
https://www.facebook.com/aPeaceBaby/videos/4253710505224/

...which is a grand example of how to integrate all these posts on Depiction with the entire series on SYMBOLISM which will need an index post eventually. Meanwhile, here are a few of the related posts to symbolism:

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

Yes, we have been working on theme-symbolism integration since 2009 at least! Symbolism is most important in connecting a modern human reader to a future alien character or civilization. Symbolism is even more important in casting the spell of Romance over a reader. Here is the series on why we cry at weddings.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/12/theme-symbolism-integration-part-1-you.html

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/2016/01/theme-symbolism-integration-part-4-how.html

And here is one about Theme-Worldbuilding integration:

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

We have studied the individual components of this craft, and now are looking at how to join those components into a seamless and functioning whole -- a whole the reader can not reverse engineer (unless the reader is a writer who understands these craft techniques).

Basically, we study the current world we live in, and we study the humans around us both as individuals and as the trends they respond to in large groups. Then we build a world the people living in this world WOULD believe if they walked into it through a dimensional gateway.

To build a convincing Alien Civilization, you must include the elements that your readers take for granted in this civilization. One thing that has arisen in recent decades is the Internet and its ability to carry video.

This video-package editing art form has been around since (to my knowledge) the 1970's when fans took clips of Star Trek episodes and blended them with filk music, showing them via VCR in hotel rooms packed with laughing fans.

The clip-editing art form dates back to the 1940's theatrical shorts, especially the News Reel, short clips edited with narrative to create an impression.

This video clip we're studying here

https://www.facebook.com/aPeaceBaby/videos/4253710505224/

Is a series of still IMAGES which are SYMBOLS of a time past, mostly the late 1940's and 1950's, symbols still extant in the 1960's. The music is a Dean Martin hit song, Memories Are Made Of This -- popularized by radio disk jockeys (paid of course by the music publishing industry to favor one singer over another.)

Those who did not grow up in the era when those images were common will not respond emotionally to them the same way that someone whose teens were spent surrounded by those items would.

That objectivity is what I'm after here, presenting this video for scrutiny.

"Memories Are Made Of This" -- listen to the words of the song. Create the SYMBOLS your Aliens would hold as Memories.

Here are the lyrics posted by Google
https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tvuikpfuavmcj32cqjcq66re3d4

Now plot your Romance with an Alien creating as you go along, just the right SYMBOL fabricated out of an integration of the human's symbols (of which the human's memories are "made") and the Alien symbols (which you invented).

Yes, writing Science Fiction Romance is hard work. But it is worth it, and with practice it gets easier and swifter.

Here is a YouTube play of the song without the Memories video clips.

https://youtu.be/mv9PSkNkUfs

It has had well over a million views, and there's a good reason for that.

Nostalgia sells. If your Aliens do not have nostalgia triggers, no human reader would believe a human could fall in love with that Alien. (You might want to create some Aliens like that, too, for contrast and conflict.)

Create a bit of nostalgia in your novel for your readers to share with their grandchildren.

Note in this brilliant video the absence of BOOKS as nostalgic triggers. Readers are always between 5 and maybe max 15% of the total population (which is why writers have a hard time making any money.) These visual items, common everyday sights, and that song (which was saturating the radio airwaves so it is known even to non-readers), combine to depict nostalgia.

What books should have been included?

Create an Alien story, novel, stage play, fictional event, that DEPICTS the era when your Alien love interest was adolescent (whatever that meant to that species).

Please study this video. If you have to, then just make yourself a Facebook Account and then delete it when you're done studying.

This Facebook video has had about 300,000 "shares" -- it nails it! Study how that was done. Disassemble into the components, study the components, invent the Alien equivalents in your universe, reassemble into the Alien art form. Your Characters and their Romance will seem real to your readers.

That "seem real" is what we call verisimilitude and this exercise is how you achieve that.

The goal of the exercise is not to make you suffer through this tedious exercise every single time you set out to create an alien civilization. The goal is to train (not teach, train) your subconscious to do this analysis/synthesis process outside your conscious awareness and present you with dynamite imagery for your novel.

To make a living at writing, you have to get fast and efficient because words aren't worth much, and art is worth even less. You have to get to where it is easy to do this, but you nail it (just like this video does) each time.

You achieve this level of proficiency by plodding through the process one step at a time, and practicing and practicing. Some people need more practice -- others somewhat less -- but with that goal of proficiency in mind, the practice time and repetitions will be minimized. The important part is to avoid practicing your mistakes.

That is a goal of these posts -- to minimize the amount of practice necessary to become proficient in writing craft skills. Fill your mind with the abstract, then practice making that abstract concrete.

The series linked above on Theme-Symbolism integration should help. Read that series on Weddings, and create a series like it about say, Christmas or New Year's, or whatever winter solstice festivity is your favorite.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Sunday, December 04, 2016

There Are Limits (to Safe Harbor), Pallante Protest, And More....

The legal blog of Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP (not a blog I've seen before) provides a detailed and fascinating --at least for copyright wonks-- article about "red flag" knowledge, and when an ISP or OSP may be said to have knowledge of copyright infringement, even when a takedown notice has not been submitted.

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ddf71645-cedf-442b-a4a8-6345fb365fd2&utm_source=lexology+daily+newsfeed&utm_medium=html+email+-+body+-+general+section&utm_campaign=lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=lexology+daily+newsfeed+2016-12-02&utm_term=

Also former Registers of Copyrights Ralph Oman and MaryBeth Peters have written a joint letter to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees concerning the recent treatment of former Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante.

https://artistrightswatch.com/2016/11/30/must-read-two-former-u-s-copyright-heads-defend-maria-pallante-from-sacking-by-rogue-librarian-of-congress/

It has been alleged that Maria Pallante was removed from her prestigous work, and assigned to policy planning for the Copyright Office gift shop. Some have allegedly speculated that the reason for Register Pallante's forced career move was that a certain search giant company's lobbyists and former search giant company's employees who now work for the current administration object to Register Pallante's alleged opposition to new regulations that benefit primarily Google, and that are disruptive and costly to copyright owners.

More articles on this scandal can be found on the copyrightalliance.org website.

Also on copyrightalliance.org are a series of short videos by copyright owners about what copyright and copyright protection means to them.

http://copyrightalliance.org/education/videos/copyright-support-career/

Submissions are welcome and being sought by the copyright alliance.

For European visitors to this blog, please be aware that Google puts cookies on your computers and other devices for the purpose of identifying your susceptibility to specific advertising. The authors of this blog have no control over this, but we have a duty to remind you of the cookies from time to time.

Other reminders: as of December 1st 2016, website owners who accept user generated content from others must register their copyright agent with the Copyright Office electronically.

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=7ab96530-bb57-4072-b753-bd226dbb0f87&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2016-12-02&utm_term=

December 9th is the USPTO open meeting on the digital marketplace. The Authors Guild will be attending.

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

Thursday, December 01, 2016

ChessieCon

We spent the Friday through Sunday noon after Thanksgiving at ChessieCon in Timonium (just north of Baltimore). I'm thankful for its location, so that we can drive there and back easily; if it required a flight or a long drive, we probably wouldn't go on a holiday weekend. The author guest of honor was Sarah Pinsker, and the musical guest was S. J. Tucker. In addition to her concert, I attended performances by Cade Tinney (who sang a song from the STEVEN UNIVERSE animated series with heart-wrenching beauty) and filk veteran Roberta Rogow. Highly impressed with Roberta Rogow's historical and SF filk, I bought two of her albums in the dealers' room. I especially like her "Schindler's List." And this piece, which she always closes with:

Fact and Fiction

I appeared on two panels, about "The Care and Feeding of Critique Groups" and STEVEN UNIVERSE. My contribution to the discussion of critique groups came from belonging to an online group of around fifteen people, who interact by e-mail. Weekly critique slots are available, and members who want feedback can send their work to the group after reserving a slot. In practice, only a few either submit or critique regularly; many of the fifteen or sixteen members seldom participate, and there's no requirement or penalty. The typical experience described by other panelists was more often with face-to-face groups of fewer people. We talked about the logistics of organizing a critique group, how to give useful feedback, and the importance of the authors in a group being at about the same level of development.

If you haven't watched the STEVEN UNIVERSE series, you'd be amazed at the depth of emotion embodied in what looks, at first glance, like a humorous superhero cartoon for kids. Steven is fourteen-year-old boy (who looks younger, and there's a plot reason why) living with the Crystal Gems, three feminine-identified aliens who fought with Steven's no-longer-present mother in a long-ago rebellion against the Homeworld Gems, who intended to use Earth as an incubator (thereby destroying all life on the planet). Steven is half Gem and half human. His human father remains involved in his life, but it's the Gems who have to protect Steven and teach him to use his nascent powers. They live in Beach City in the state of Delmarva; their home is an alternate version of Earth, the prehistoric Gem War apparently having knocked the planet's history off the course our primary world followed. The panel naturally spent a lot of time on gender issues, a central focus of the show, but there was much more to discuss. One of the series' dominant themes is reconciliation and redemption. We decided Steven's main "superpower" is empathy. Though still a child and far from perfect, he tries very hard to heal even the most unprepossessing "monsters." The very cartoonish art style belies the underlying seriousness of this animated Intimate Adventure program, so its complexities sneak up on the viewer. Do give it a try. The individual episodes are only about twelve minutes long after the commercials are stripped off. Be warned of "continuity lockout" after the first few episodes; the story really needs to be viewed in order.

My husband, Les, also appeared on two panels, one on submarines in science fiction and one on the phenomenon of high-tech magic, fantasy with scientific underpinnings or science so advanced it looks like magic. We attended another panel on submarines, a slide show presentation on real underwater craft of the nineteenth century (and a bit about Jules Verne's Nautilus). One session that delved particularly deeply into its topic tackled the challenge of creating realistic characters with PTSD. There was also a panel on "Writing Outside the Lines," about constructing characters unlike oneself (in gender, race, etc.), a complex and contentious issue.

Les and I participated in the group author signing and had fun talking to people, even though we didn't sell any copies of our books.

ChessieCon is highly book-oriented with lots of sessions slanted toward writers. It also has a full music track. If you live in or near Maryland, do consider joining us some year.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Depiction Part 21 - Depicting Alien History

Depiction Part 21
Depicting Alien History
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous entries in the Depiction Series can be found listed here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

The best way to depict Alien (non-human) anything is to use a pattern that has appeared in human history -- and preferably reappeared cyclically.

Long, broad, historical trends are very hard to see by studying history.

It is hard to trace the connections among events occurring centuries apart in different parts of the world, and different parts of culture.

Here is an example from the History of Government that is easy to use, easy for your reader to comprehend, and potentially easy to write.

There is a theory (lauded in science fiction circles) that all species of non-human peoples will have forms of government derived from their sexuality.

So study Earth's biology, and pattern your Aliens on one of our species reproductive proclivities. Then figure what sort of governments (through the arc of thousands of years of history) that your Aliens have invented and used -- and to what effect.

Use a pattern you can find in human history (and pre-history) based on human biology.

Well, you probably don't want to muddy your picture with all of human biology, so focus on one aspect.

In Part 19 of this series on Depicting ...
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/depiction-part-19-depicting-married.html

...we discussed testosterone and its role in the insane, incessant, furious, and unreasonable addiction to Winning. The surge of testosterone caused by defeating and humiliating a foe is actually addictive -- addictive in the sense that with each successive win, it takes a bigger win next time to get the same euphoric effect.

Testosterone is a drug that produces a high that is absolutely addictive.

It has an obverse. Losing a battle produces a lack of testosterone and consequent listless misery, knuckling under, surrender, and lack of desire to fight.

Being married with children tames human males, lowering and evening out the testosterone spikes (or so current research indicates -- maybe that's not true, but for the purposes of fictional worldbuilding, it is a good model).

Apparently, according to a set of studies (that I find poorly designed and not aimed at the real problem),
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/08/health/sex-olympics-athletic-performance/index.html
just "having sex" doesn't affect a human's determination to win, though these 4 studies (all on men) don't measure addiction to the "high" of being a winner. They were after athletic performance, (speed, strength, endurance) not the addiction effect of winning which all the participants would have in full force.

Remember, we are looking to design an Alien that your human readers can comprehend without effort.

When looking for a model, a pattern, to use for your fictional aliens, you don't need to find the real scientific truth of a matter, but rather what the major portion of your target audience believes is the truth of the matter. Your objective is to sell them entertainment, not teach them science.

In the process of luring your readers into your fictional universe, you may awaken a thirst for actual science education.

That is what Robert A. Heinlein did so very well, and many other writers followed suit. But one generation's scientific truth is the next generation's superstitious nonsense, so just start with what your readers think is true, and extrapolate something unthinkable from that. It is the mental process of extrapolation that is entertaining -- not the content of the facts.

Sketch Of Human History

So looking at human history as various forms of government conducting wars, winning and losing, and the subsequent behaviors of the winning and losing cultures, make yourself a chart or graph that depicts the swing from absolute Totalitarianism to Anarchy and back again.

Go back to, say, the world depicted in Clan of the Cave Bear

-- alone and having to make everything you need to survive all by yourself from scratch, the concept "wealth" takes on a primal meaning.

We discussed what an Alien Romance Novel Writer can learn from Clan of the Cave Bear in Part 17 of this series on Depiction.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/08/depiction-part-17-depicting-first.html

Work up the "Tribal Structure" ladder, just as you see today in "failed states" where "militia" take over. Look at how Libya has fallen apart.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Crisis_(2011_present)

For our fictional purposes, Wikipedia is a superior source because it represents what most of your readers think is true. You can "set the record straight" in your novel, but you must start with what they think is true to suspend disbelief.

There was a dictatorship, strong-man style (kill the opposition and plow the bodies under in unmarked graves), and now there are militias, and a rising power of better organized but very vicious jihadists forcing their standards on other people at penalty of death.

Same sort of thing happened decades ago in the Balkans. It happens exactly like that wherever you have a "failed state." Humans organize behind a strong protector who will fight other humans and bring home food.

So go back to Biblical Times, and Egypt and Babylon -- there arose governments based on the divine right of Kings. Pharoah was considered a living god.

So operational government "authority" was legitimized by a supernatural mantle.

Through the Middle Ages The Church essentially Ruled, with the first born sons inheriting land and station, and the extra and spare sons going into the Church where the real wealth and power resided.

Kings fought and grabbed Rule. All the places that have left us records had governments run by a King or Emperor (Queen etc). The secret to longevity as a Country was centralization of power.

By divine right, Kings owned all the land, and basically owned the very people -- sometimes people owned other people (slaves). There was a hierarchy that governed, and the only way to change anything was to overthrow the ones in Power.

The Kings who were better at winning wars got control of larger territories, and usually the bigger ones survived and prospered better. Think of the Roman Empire. Of course it fell apart eventually.

The same kind of agglutination went on in China -- today's China is an amalgam of many old Empires which were composed of an amalgam of Kingdoms.

An Emperor is a King of Kings -- who graciously lets the Kings he conquers stay in power and run their little Kingdoms and pay taxes to the Empire.

In the enormous Roman Empire, we saw the application of the ideas we first found among the Ancient Greeks (which may have arisen previously, but we don't have a record of that) -- the very word Democracy is Hellenistic.

So comes democracy, and the half-assed overthrow of Kings creating the Constitutional Monarchy model -- then the USA and France shook off even that semblance of Monarch and handed the reins of government to ordinary citizens.

Then came decades of fighting over "who" has the "right" to vote. (well, we're still fighting over that).

Meanwhile, the Natural Aristocrats among humans, being mortally offended by the Rule of the RiffRaff, have systematically and patiently (and oh, so aristocratically refined and politely) worked to re-structure the Republic/Democracy model back into Rule From The Throne By Your Betters.

So in the 20th Century we saw the rise of Socialism, Communism, Stalin-ism, Progressivism and other isms all focused on the arduous task of centralizing control of every facet of life. Kings of old had the power of life and death, directly, by the fact of holding the throne. Today's Kings hold the power of life and death by controlling the resources the peasants need to keep breathing, electricity, air conditioning, refrigeration, medical care, medicine (controlling what you may or may not have access to according to whether they deem it effective), transportation, import/export permissions, regulations on water, on building reservoirs, on transporting crude oil, on banking, on social networking, and no doubt soon (as Robert A. Heinlein predicted) a tax on breathable air.

All of these regulations come from the Executive Branch, and all the local Laws must conform to Law created at one central building in Washington D.C. or in New York at the U.N. -- gathered and centralized decision making is efficient, but requires a "one size fits all" solution to every problem.

With all the decision making centralized, decision makers are then in a position to sell (for campaign contributions or other convoluted methods of payment) exceptions to the various rules, regulations and laws. Exemptions have become the new coin of the realm, just as the Kings of old handed out Favors, and the Popes handed out Indulgences. So a handful of people who know best get to pick the winners. (keep your eye on the testosterone addiction effect.)

End Sketch of Human History

This is just a thumbnail sketch of human historical epochs. For your purposes, you may take the same historical (and pre-historical) records of Earth and arrange them into a different narrative.

Your Alien History will have that same shape, but entirely different content. It may also have a different "period" -- a different length of the sine wave of the back and forth between individual independence and self-sufficiency and absolute monarchy.

Now remember all the philosophical works you've read on War and Human Nature -- how we are just Great Apes and our international wars are just like tribes of Apes fighting. How humans establish a pecking order just like most animals that live in groups. This model of human history assumes we are just animals, no Soul or God involved, and any god references are just superstitious balderdash.

Ask yourself is War a product of human sexuality? Is war the inevitable outcome of testosterone addiction?

Do your aliens have a sexual hormone that they become addicted to, and how does that hormone come to flood their systems?

How do your aliens behave under the influence of that hormone? How does that hormone driven behavior contribute to their individual and species survival?

Then derive a kind of governmental structure that mirrors human structures (pecking order to warfare included), but is rooted in their addiction to their hormone.

Here, again from Wikipedia, is a list of the areas of life that Government must centralize to regain Kingship and absolute sovereignty over the RiffRaff, so nobody can survive without permission. It is quite a comprehensive list, and if you cover all these areas within the narrative of your story, you will generate impenetrable expository lumps. Determine how your aliens handle all these areas, but Depict in Show Don't Tell only the ones thematically germane to your specific story.

------quote from Wikipedia-----
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Chase

Free Enterprise into 'X'[edit]
On pages 95 and 96 of The Road We Are Traveling, under the heading of "Free Enterprise into 'X'",[12] Chase listed 18 characteristics of political economy that he had observed among[13] Russia, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain between 1913[14] and 1942. Chase labeled this phenomenon "... something called 'X'".[12] Characteristics include the following:

A strong, centralized government.
An executive arm growing at the expense of the legislative and judicial arms.
The control of banking, credit and security exchanges by the government.
The underwriting of employment by the government, either through armaments or public works.
The underwriting of social security by the government – old-age pensions, mothers' pensions, unemployment insurance, and the like.
The underwriting of food, housing, and medical care, by the government.
The use of deficit spending to finance these underwritings.
The abandonment of gold in favor of managed currencies.
The control of foreign trade by the government.
The control of natural resources.
The control of energy sources.
The control of transportation.
The control of agricultural production.
The control of labor organizations.
The enlistment of young men and women in youth corps devoted to health, discipline,community service and ideologies consistent with those of the authorities.
Heavy taxation, with special emphasis on the estates and incomes of the rich.
Control of industry without ownership.
State control of communications and propaganda.

-------------end quote from Wikipedia--------------

Stuart Chase, the fellow who compiled that comprehensive list of areas of human endeavor, is the originator of the concept called, in American Politics, The New Deal, and was Advisor to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In the 1960s, Chase lent his support to the Johnson administration's Great Society policies.

Some of the centralized government functions on that list will translate easily to your Aliens -- natural resources, energy sources, agriculture (provided they eat plants or animals), maybe trade and transportation.

Robert A. Heinlein's (1907-1988 -- contemporary of Stuart Chase) teleporting "doors" would serve to undermine centralized government functions as traumatically as the internet has been undermining the governments so stable during the 20th century. You know how ISIS (among others) has been using the Internet to convince young, testosterone driven, males that black is white and up is down, murder is holy. So transportation and communication have both been used. What other government function might a human-generated technological innovation undermine among your Aliens?

What historical figure among your Aliens contributed such foundational philosophical works on the form and function of government? Give that Alien a name and a nickname, and title some works of his/hers/its that you can quote. What technology do your Alien rebels discover, invent, or buy from humans, that lets them overthrow that centralized control?

Never tell your readers about that secret hormone -- show them the results, and the consequences when human testosterone clashes with alien hormones.

The only thing I can see that your readers would find relevant, but is not on Stuart Chase's list, is centralized government control of reproduction -- and that, too, has been done in science fiction. Still, with today's advances in gene editing, there is much more story potential.

What if your Alien Rebels found a well preserved corpse of their species as it used to be before a centralized government forcibly mandated alteration of their genome? What would happen, for example, to humanity if we altered the gene(s) responsible for testosterone addiction? Suppose the alteration didn't work quite as expected, and three or four generations later we have humans who are ultra-sensitive and even more prone to testosterone addiction (which addiction causes the win at all costs, and win and win again and again syndrome).

All our most popular movies, one action scene after another mass destruction scene, all superhero win-win-win oh-do-it-again-because-it-feels-so-good formula movies sell all over the world. You don't need to do a good translation of the sparse dialogue because the story isn't about what the characters say or think, but just about destroying and winning.

What do your aliens do instead? What are their most popular films about - historically and "now" as well as the way "now" distorts their history via film and other arts?

Depict their culture with quotes of their famous philosophers and one-liners from their most well known movies.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Saturday, November 26, 2016

Do You Know What You Give Away Online...?

You may give away more rights --more copyrights-- than you suspect when you upload something lovely to a social media site.

In Part 2 of an examination of copyright and social media, Shannon McCue of Baker & Hostetler LLP explains that under the TOS, when you (the user) post a picture or a video or an original quote, many social media sites take from you the perpetual right to create derivative works from your "stuff" and even to sell the right to create and monetize derivative works to third parties.

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=738f4f53-54f5-40b5-a7ce-54c20165b048

So, seemingly, the Social Media site could sell someone else the right to take your cat photo and create your-cat T shirts or coffee mugs, and sell them, and pay nothing to you.

Interestingly, the law is not so clearly against you, the copyright owner, if someone snags your photographic portrait from Instagram (or wherever), crops it and slaps on some captions, and tries to sell that for his own profit.

The Art Law firm, Boodle Hatfield explains here:

Or here:

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=d51678f2-ae9a-4207-a61d-34e51813cce0&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2016-11-25&utm_term=

Shannon McCue's Part 1 for those who want to read it before Part 2 is here:

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=a8400cb9-cf87-4cb4-95dd-2e35df328c0d

Bartier Perry (in 2013) wrote on a similar theme in "We Promise We Probably Won't Use it...." .) (it was a much longer title, the ellipses are mine).

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9e6d316a-4b48-4c84-86e7-b5b5a25a3c85

Are you outraged about the stories that some social media sites are censoring comments by users?

What you may not know is that the Safe Harbor protections for website owners and social media sites are changing, and they might be held liable for "distributing" defamatory comments left by anonymous users.

Kelley Drye & Warren LLP explain the ongoing Gawker case.

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=23ca9a28-256e-4a3d-86ab-78ae2b41c163&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2016-11-25&utm_term=

Remember, if you own a website, you must register your copyright agent with the Copyright Office by December 2017.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Thanksgiving Weekend

Happy Thanksgiving to our American readers!

This weekend, as usual, I'll be attending ChessieCon (formerly Darkover):

ChessieCon

The guest of honor will be Sarah Pinsker, Sturgeon Award winner and Nebula finalist. Musical special guest is S. J. Tucker, who performs in a bluesy-folky style. Although the former headline group, Clam Chowder, has disbanded, they'll have an informal session in the atrium again this year. I'll be on a couple of panels and will post a report next week. Fortunately, the weather in our area looks good for driving this weekend.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Depiction Part 20 Depicting Recent Wealth by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction
Part 20
Depicting Recent Wealth
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
Social Class is much in the news these days. Older works such as MY FAIR LADY don't qualify these days as a model for how people from different backgrounds move up or down in the world, because many of the features of "class" that mark humans apart have changed.

In fact, a writer of Alien Romance should examine the entire notion of "up" and "down" as a model for social structure.

One thing that distresses so many governments around the world about the Internet and all the social media is that this world wide conversation loosens the government grip on what the people think -- because the internet changes what people know (or believe to be true.)

Thought control is essential to some kinds of government.

So one objective of those who want or need "control" over others is to freeze individuals in a social stratum, maybe make that stratum large enough that individuals can feel they are rising in the world without leaving their stratum.

Non-humans might function in an entirely different way -- thus leading our Human governments to mis-interpret actions or under-estimate Alien individuals.

But you are writing for a human readership, so you need to depict the alien behaviors in a way that allows your reader to connect with your aliens. Or alternatively, you may want your readers to feelno connection at all to your Aliens (so you can have a nice war).

Spock was the "Alien" Character that Gene Roddenberry invented to look at humans from the outside and comment on these odd human foibles. His original idea was to have a female First Officer who was emotionless and a half-Vulcan Science Officer who was ultra-smart. The network would not allow a female First Officer because women can't order men around - it is not plausible that men would obey (right?). So Gene Roddenberry saved the Spock Character by making him the First Officer.

You, as a writer of Alien Romance, have to learn to think that way -- it is not a compromise, but a matter of artistic integrity.

The trick in luring an audience into a built world is to change only ONE thing and make the rest of that world pretty much like the reader's reality.

In the Potterverse, we have our reality -- and a place away somewhere that Magic is taught. A few Magic Users are sprinkled among the Muggles - but this is the Muggle's world, your reader's everyday reality.

So, how do you depict Recently Acquired Wealth -- a character who has suddenly moved from an impoverished apartment in subsidized housing to a Quarter Acre 5 bedroom house with a pool in the cool, tree filled suburbs?

What is the one visible thing that character would do, would consider imperative, urgent, top priority, after making such a move?

There is now a scientific answer to that question which reinforces the ideas you get from My Fair Lady. In the play or movie, the initiative for changing dress, walk, speech, of the woman comes from a man. It is something he does TO her.

In our modern reality, it is something she does to herself.

Here is an article scientifically studying shoe purchases.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/26/what-high-heels-say-about-the-rich-and-the-poor/

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

“When women move from lower-income area to a higher-income area, they pretty much took on the preferences of women around them,” said Galak. “On the other hand, when they moved from a wealthier area to a less wealthy area, what we found is that women pretty much stuck with their preferences.”

In other words, when a woman moved to a higher-status area, she was more likely to try to adopt the fashion and practices of people there, as the chart below shows. When a woman moved to a lower-status area, she was more likely to retain her old behavior, perhaps as an effort to be unique.

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

Conformity matters to humans (and not just women). Imagine a world in which government is used as a weapon to prevent individuals from changing their economic stratum. Anyone who does move (up or down the economic ladder) must change costume and behavior, speech mannerisms, etc., to avoid notice by the thought-police. In fact, your Character's very thoughts may trap him/her in a way that your Alien character would not recognize or abide.

Here are some of those thoughts that a newly rich person would have to learn:
http://www.businessinsider.com/ways-rich-people-think-differently-2014-5

Now, if you create some very Alien aliens -- truly non-human, maybe more so than Spock, you can SHOW DON'T TELL your reader that these non-humans are potentially good friends by how the non-humans prioritize dress, demeanor, thinking processes, and appearance to "fit in."

This was done exceptionally well on the TV Series ALIEN NATION.

https://www.amazon.com/Alien-Nation-Complete-Gary-Graham/dp/B000BOH8Y6/

The Aliens were easily understood and accepted because they went to the effort to fit in. Those Aliens who did not, who rebelled, because the focus of various episode plots.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Sunday, November 20, 2016

USPTO: Develpoing the Digital Marketplace for Copyrighted Works

Quoting: "The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force (IPTF) is pleased to announce a Public Meeting on Developing the Digital Marketplace for Copyrighted Works to be held on Dec. 9, 2016 at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) headquarters in Alexandria, VA. Additional “watch parties” will be arranged at USPTO regional offices in Denver, Dallas, and Silicon Valley. The meeting will be webcast. "The purpose of the meeting is to facilitate constructive, cross-industry dialogue among stakeholders about ways to promote a more robust and collaborative digital marketplace for copyrighted works. Specifically, the meeting will focus on initiatives in this space that relate to standards development, interoperability across digital registries, and cross-industry collaboration, for the purpose of understanding the current state of affairs, identifying challenges, and discussing paths forward. Additionally, participants will explore potential approaches to the future adoption and integration into the online marketplace of relevant emerging technologies (e.g., blockchain technology and open source platforms). The goal of the meeting is to provide a platform for discussion and to determine how government can be of assistance. One outcome could be the establishment of working groups to tackle specific issues through a multi-stakeholder process.We will have panel sessions in the morning, an exhibition hall to showcase initiatives during lunchtime, and breakout sessions and a plenary discussion in the afternoon. Members of the public will have opportunities to participate. Additional information: To register to attend, or view the agenda and webcast information, please visit: https://www.uspto.gov/learning-and-resources/ip-policy/public-meeting-developing-digital-marketplace-copyrighted-works-dec.For additional information or questions, please contact Susan Allen, Attorney-Adviser, USPTO's Office of Policy and International Affairs (OPIA), at susan.allen@uspto.gov, with “IPTF Dec. 9 Mtg.” in the subject line.

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Vampire Disjunction

I've kept up with the TV series THE VAMPIRE DIARIES despite the heroine's disappearance from the show. (The character was magically consigned to suspended animation.) At present Damon, one of the co-starring vampire brothers, has "switched off his humanity," not for the first time. Under compulsion from this season's villain, an ancient, powerful Siren, he's had to perform terrible acts. To escape the guilt and pain, he "flipped" his "humanity switch" so that he feels no emotions and therefore can't suffer. Apparently all vampires have this capability, since others in the series have done the same thing. With their humanity voluntarily turned off—apparently requiring only a simple act of will—they have intellect, sensation, and appetite but no feelings, positive or negative. They simply don't care. While suppressing one's humanity is easy, reawakening it requires an agonizing intervention by some other person, especially since no vampire who has undergone this change wants it reversed.

The dichotomy between vampires with and without souls on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER functions similarly. According to that show's mythos, the creation of a vampire displaces the victim's soul, leaving the body possessed by a demon. As Buffy tells a character in an early episode, "That's not your friend, it's the thing that killed him." This "demon-animated corpse" thesis becomes problematic with the introduction of Spike, whose personality and behavior seem to have definite continuity with his human life, and he's certainly capable of loving in his own way. Nevertheless, it's established that "normal" vampires don't have souls. Angel appears to be unique in that respect until Spike also becomes re-souled late in the series. As far as we can tell, "soul" seems equivalent to "conscience." Unlike in THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, where suppression of humanity turns off emotions, soulless vampires in the BUFFY universe have a wide range of emotions, often violently passionate even if usually negative.

Both of these plot devices remind me of the junct-disjunct contrast in the Sime-Gen series. A vampire deprived of soul or humanity (which seem to entail much the same thing, allowing for differences between the series' vampire mythos) is analogous to a junct Sime. In these vampire universes, regaining a soul or embracing one's remaining traces of humanity resembles disjunction. Remaining or becoming junct represents the easy way, while disjuncting is usually terribly difficult and painful, just as accepting the return of soul or humanity can subject a vampire to great suffering. One big difference is that junct Simes are still human, and many of them want to disjunct. No vampire who has turned off his or her humanity wants it switched on, and BUFFY vampires hardly ever wish for souls. (Angel finds his a source of torment, since its return awakens his conscience and therefore makes him suffer guilt for the evil he has done.) Spike, the notable exception, seeks the restoration of his soul out of devotion to Buffy. In MAHOGANY TRINROSE, it's discovered that a drug made from the trinrose can ease the disjunction process, so that one of the characters fears Simes might begin to think going junct is no big deal, because "I can always disjunct again." Similarly, Damon on THE VAMPIRE DIARIES has had his humanity switched on and off a couple of times, and Angel regained his soul, lost it, and got it back again. In both cases, we have to wonder how much guilt the re-souled or humanity-embracing vampire should legitimately bear for acts he performed when devoid of soul or humanity. At those times, was he "not himself"?

Neither of these programs explicitly defines what humanity or a soul actually is. In the BUFFY universe, a soul is referred to as almost a thing, a concrete entity that can be removed and replaced like a physical object. When a vampire lacks a soul, has that part of him or her been sent to the "Heaven" where Buffy thought she was between her death and her restoration to life? Does the vampire's disembodied soul have any trace of consciousness, wherever it is? We're never told. In THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, "humanity" seems to be more a state of being than an entity. The "flipping a switch" imagery likens it to an electric current. While it would be more satisfying if these series defined their terms with some precision, at least they do foreground existential and ontological questions in interesting ways.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

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.

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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."

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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.
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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