Showing posts with label Destiny. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Destiny. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Believing in the Happily Ever After Part 9, Why Strive to Fulfill Your Destiny by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Believing in the Happily Ever After
Part 9
Why Strive to Fulfill Your Destiny?
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Index to the Happily Ever After series is:

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

"Youth is wasted on the young." 

That is one of the oldest (maybe wisest) adages you will hear, and a cautionary tale in one succinct line.  Most Romance novels, science fiction romance, paranormal romance, are about young people.

Romance is, obviously, the dominant feature of life when you are young -- looking for it, wishing for it, wanting it, seeing others attain it, yearning to have your life-path changed by an encounter with a true Soul Mate.

Youth, especially the teen years, is peppered with giant miseries.  Or they seem giant at the time -- rather smaller in retrospect.  Still, such teen-angst is very real,  very potent, and very life-determining. 

How an individual responds to an angst or misery, a situation of being tormented, bullied, oppressed, or outright abused, of being trapped, forced, and desperate, seems to determine where that person's life will go -- the "destiny" of that individual.

Is "destiny" something you choose by choosing your response to your teen-challenges?

Or is destiny something you are born to -- as the Ancient Greeks depicted -- a decree of "the gods" which, if defied will result in something even worse?

In other words, whether a Character views their Situation (miseries and all) as a springboard into a (very real, tangible, and actual) Happily Ever After lifetime, may depend on their religion, creed, culture, or cussedly defiant Nature.

Is "Destiny" -- a Happily Ever After life is one possible Destiny -- something you can attain only by fighting, battling, risking life-or-death, desperately striving for?  Or is "Destiny" something that just happens, and can't be avoided (as the Greeks believed).

What exactly is Destiny? 

If it is something you will reach, and have no choice about, then why strive? 

If it is something you might attain, if you work hard enough for it, then it is a choice.

In either case, Youth is the inflection point -- somewhere between maybe 15 years old and possibly 29, critical choices are made.

For example, choose to go to college when you are 15, then hurl yourself wholly into academics and win a scholarship, devote every waking moment to studying (not going on Dates), and make it through a Ph.D. -- but in what discipline?

Another choice, then, would be a choice of career, or career direction, and once made, these early, (youthful) choices are very hard to set aside.

Many people, in later years, regret mightily their choices in their teens.

Is the choice, made in ignorance, by the teenaged self actually the real Destiny of that Soul?  Or is the actual Destiny chosen in later life -- say 35-45 years of age (the second marriage is the typical Romance novel motif).

This idea is rooted in the concept of Destiny as something that is the consequence of choices made in innocence, ignorance, and Youth.

Suppose in your Paranormal Romance universe, Destiny is set by Birth, written in the genes, or perhaps the Social Status of the Parents?

Once set, once carved into the developing person before the age of 7 years, can it be changed?  Should it?  What is the price of choosing a different Destiny than is expected of you?

Why should you strive to fulfill the expectations of "others" (parents, siblings, teachers, Authority, Society)?  Don't you have anything more important to do? 

The answer to that question -- "why should you" -- is a theme.

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

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

We've discussed THEME in almost every post -- it is the origin of the opening scene, the Middle Pivot Point, and the final Climax as well as the last word. 

Theme is this novel's statement about the nature of the reality the Characters must navigate to get to their Happily Ever After situation -- and what makes those Characters Happy is not necessarily obvious to the reader without a very clear ILLUSTRATION of the theme by the writer's use of symbolism.

Theme is energy of Culture - and it resides in the non-verbal part of the mind, or perhaps pre-verbal.  Theme is what you know about the world that you have no idea you ever learned.  But you did.  You learned your Reality before you were able to form words.  That is why few writers begin shaping a story by stating the theme to themselves.

Theme is often something you discover while working through a final polish draft -- and suddenly realizing you need a major rewrite to communicate that Theme to the readers. 

If the readers understand the Theme, the Characters will never seem "one-dimensional" or "cardboard" or "out of character to do that stupid thing." 

The Character's motivations will be excruciatingly clear to most all there readers to can grasp the Theme -- the single-pointed center of the Character's "reality."  The Origin Story of their reality.

So the Origin Story is very important to followers of the exploits of the Superhero.

Two TV Series Superhero properties based on Comics illustrate this point.

ARROW - based on DC Comics superhero Green Arrow, about a scion of a wealthy family Oliver Queen, thought drowned in a shipwreck who survived on an Island learning Martial Arts. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_(TV_series)

IRON FIST - about a scion of a wealthy family thought killed in a plane crash who survived by being rescued by Monks from "another dimension" (where he learned to control chi and make his fist glow with Power). 

IRON FIST is a Marvel property, done as a Netflix Original,

https://www.netflix.com/title/80002612
Marvel's Iron Fist: A Netflix Original
2017 TV-MA 1 Season
Danny Rand resurfaces 15 years after being presumed dead. Now, with the power of the Iron Fist, he seeks to reclaim his past and fulfill his destiny.



Do an in-depth contrast-compare study of the first seasons of these two series.

Both these are typical Superhero Characters -- somehow striving to fulfill a Destiny.   Broken from their "past" (like Superman was sent to Earth in a capsule as a baby). 

They appeal to the youth in us all with the dream of a better life earned by striving.

In the best of these mythical universes, one gets a better life by making the world a better place (fighting crime, evil, whatever invading forces want to ruin good things).

The dream of striving to fulfill a Destiny is mostly a thing of Youth, and with decades of life behind (think Gandalf) most humans realize they never will "make it."

But some (like Gandalf) get another chance before age robs them of abilities.

So to convince your Readers that the Happily Ever After ending is realistic, craft a thematic answer to the question about the nature of reality in your Characters' Universe -- "What exactly is Destiny, where does it come from, does everyone have it, does anyone need it, or even want it, and is Destiny worth striving for because it is Destiny or because it is the HEA condition we all yearn for?"

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Reviews 18 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg: Theirs Not To Reason Why by Jean Johnson

Reviews 18
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Theirs Not To Reason Why by Jean Johnson 

The general topic of this blog is Alien Romance which means Romance between someone like you and someone very much not like you.

Perhaps the alien is a ghost, a being from another planet, a human/alien half-breed like Spock, someone from another Dimension, or as the Ancient Greeks had it, a "god" who mates with a human to produce a Hero whom they then proceed to torture with various forms of abuse.

The best science fiction takes the current bleeding edge scientific theories and applies the speculations:
A) What if ....
B) If Only ....
C) If This Goes On ...

The kind of science fiction I like best plays out those speculations against the human dimension of Relationships.

The very-very best have Human Relationships galore plus a Romantic Ignition of real Love, a Soul Mate, and a huge scientific problem that, if not solved, will destroy the Relationships and prevent the Romance from culminating in Happily Ever After.

In other words, the "stakes" in the main plot involve the HEA goal of life.

The opposition, or conflict, that causes Characters to take chances, make decisions, commit to insane courses of action, to play for high stakes in order to be able to solve the problem and attain the HEA, is Ignorance.  What you don't know can kill you.  Or worse, destroy you.

Some really great novels turn on the Ignorance of Characters where what they do not know is already known to others -- e.g. secrets, international intrigue, spying, or just the "secrets" adults keep from children.

But in science fiction the "ignorance" obstacle is about something that nobody knows, no human has ever known, that may in fact be (at this point in time) unknowable by the human brain which has yet to evolve the capacity to know it.

In order to bring the Romance to fruition, that Ignorance must be dispelled.

To live Happily Ever After in a science fiction romance novel, the Characters must discover something nobody has ever known before.

Sequels are generated as these Characters try to disseminate their new Wisdom.  They may be living the Happily Ever After life they fought to achieve, but now that they are happy, they can not endure the misery of others.

"If only everyone knew this!" then everyone would be happy like we are.  But of course, nobody will listen.

When was the last time you lost an argument and just changed your whole view of the universe to the winner's notion, changed your religion and politics, to the opposite of what they were just because someone proved you wrong?

In comics aimed at children, you often see a plot where a character just Changes from one illustrative panel of the story to the next because they learn something from another character.

In real life, we all know how stubbornly we cling to the views we have invested in emotionally, regardless of new facts uncovered.  Even when we profess to have adopted a new belief, even when we believe we have adopted a new belief -- the old belief still creeps into our behavior.  Real change takes years, even decades, to integrate into behavior and values, into emotional responses.

New science describes certain brain functions that make some people more capable of changing their minds about their beliefs than others.  Humans differ from each other, and some differences are hardwired into the brain structure, or so new science reveals.

http://www.salon.com/2015/07/05/why_doesnt_everyone_believe_in_god_the_skeptical_brain_may_hold_the_answer/

In old fashioned science fiction (published to the market of adolescent boys), new facts changed minds if only the main character could prove them.

In modern science fiction, and a lot of Fantasy, the main character has to kick butt and go their own way to save the universe.

Jean Johnson
http://jeanjohnson.net/
has given us a wonderful example of the lone woman from a tight-knit and loving family who accepts the responsibility to save the galaxy's civilization as she knows it, just because she discovers something nobody else knows.

This is the 5 book series, Theirs Not To Reason Why by Jean Johnson.  The main character is named Ia.

Here are all 5 books as a single Kindle download.

http://www.amazon.com/Theirs-Not-Reason-Why-Book/dp/B00WTIVC4E/

You can get the paper ACE Books editions, but several of them are very thick with small type.

Note the volume titled Hardship is more slender with larger type as it was split off from the 5th volume, Damnation.

The series was planned as 4 books, then the final volume split.  Hellfire is 476 pages in paper, and the type is telephone book size.

The 5 volumes tell one continuous story focused tightly on the character named Ia.  The writing cleverly allows you to enter the series at any point.

Each volume is a complete story, and the backstory is well enough sketched that everything makes sense and reads smoothly.  But the series is a series -- it's more fun in read order.

A Soldier's Duty
An Officer's Duty
Hellfire
Hardship
Damnation

Hellfire and Damnation are ship's names.  Hardship and Damnation were to be one book titled Damnation.

It is military SF set in a galactic war situation, tightly focused on the main character, a woman named Ia who enlists in the Service, does boot camp, rises from an enlisted grunt to top Admiral with a lot of power-titles bestowed on her by various allied civilizations.

The reason I enjoyed it so much is that the story is a mature, adult version of the standard "Mary Sue" fanfic that I love so much.  Then the last book in the series ends off with a surprise "reveal" that changes your perspective on whether it is a "Mary Sue"  because well, maybe it's not.

On her website http://jeanjohnson.net Jean admits she did go to professional writing after writing fanfic, and she knows the fanfic field.  I consider that a plus.

Theirs Not To Reason Why as a series, is a very well constructed multi-volume story arc, and has a standard Galactic War plot line, standard (if ridiculously successful) military career arc complete with a change in service branch.

But to this familiar structure, Jean Johnson adds the Fantasy dimension of Precognition raised to the level of science.  And that makes the rocketing rise in military grade completely plausible.

There is no explanation though for the maturity level of this 18 year old girl who over the course of a few short years becomes trusted with the destiny of the galaxy by older, wiser, heads.

Predicting the future accurately (even with a fudge factor for lesser probabilities that manifest) does not give you judgement.

So suspend disbelief and just gobble up these novels.  They comprise one huge, great read.

In the Theirs Not To Reason Why series, many people (human and otherwise) in this galactic civilization have working precognition that spans anywhere from a few minutes to maybe weeks or months.

But ONLY our Heroine, Ia, can "see" up the timestream for more than a thousand years.  Such a person was prophesied and at least one planet has believed such a person would come onto the scene.  She wins their recognition as that prophet of a thousand years.

Ia sees a galactic invasion coming, tries to find a way for her galaxy to survive it, and can see only one way through.  She knows it will cost her all hope of an HEA at the end of it all.  It will cost her every good thing that life brings -- and eventually it will cost her life itself.  But it will save the galaxy.  One life to save trillions.

The threat Ia sees coming will arrive in about 300 years.  She could choose to live out her life, claim her HEA, and a cozy familiy life.  But she can't because she can see the disaster looming via Precognition.

She tries to find another way and can't, so she launches into a career to make the reputation she needs to gain the credibility and political power necessary to save the galactic civilzation.
Her every move is guided by her Precognition.  She anticipates the results of each move everyone in a pivotal role will make and because of her accuracy in prediction, she gains support.

That's a Mary Sue premise -- that people will accept someone who is correct because they are correct.
All you have to do is prove you are right, and people will accept you even if not exactly love you.

Real life doesn't work that way, so suspend disbelief to read these novels.  Ultimately, it will be worth the effort because there's plenty here to enjoy, and Ia does take a lot of flak because she is correct which adds a dash of realism.

So with a background in fanfic, Jean Johnson grabbed my heart, and with a background in professional Romance Novels, she warmed my heart.  In July 2015, the top page of jeanjohnson.net carried some comments by Jean about Fifty Shades of Gray and where it fits into the Romance genre.

-----QUOTE from Jean Johnson  http://jeanjohnson.net ----------

It's normally considered polite to "not say anything bad" about another author's book, as a sign of professional respect...but during the recent media storm and counter-storm regarding the movie adaptation of "Fifty Shades of Gray" being released on Valentine's Day (which I will call FSoG for short), I have decided to put my reputation as an author on the line.

Now, to get this absolutely clear: I do not object to the existence of FSoG. I think it has every right to exist as a written work. Furthermore, I came from fanfiction myself; I know what gets written in fanfic genres. I know the quality of writing can also vary widely from...well, juvenile quality of the sort which most people would never dare show in public, to highly sculpted, truly beautiful prose of a level I myself am still trying to somehow magically attain (i.e. take several more years of hard work and practice). I therefore have no problems with that side of things, either. And if the novels (there are 3, fyi) were written to be, say, psychological horror stories / abuse survivor stories, I'd have no problems with the subject matter at all.

However, I do have a problem with FSoG being promoted as something good, desirable, and emulatable in a romantic relationship.

This series has been repeatedly analyzed by experts in fields of psychology, psychiatry, domestic abuse, AND the kink communities out there, as an utterly unhealthy relationship. These experts in their fields pretty much all agree that the majority of the three stories are not at all romantic, and in fact are rather alarming when considered in the light of the way FSoG and its sequels have been promoted as something which men and women should want, should aspire to, should seek out, and should emulate in their own lives. Indeed, the experts pretty much agree that the FSoG books appear to be romanticized domestic abuse.

Domestic abuse is a subject which I take very seriously. It is not romantic.
---------END QUOTE-------

I read that quote after I finished reading the novel series Theirs Not To Reason Why, so it did not color my enjoyment of the books.

I've been thinking lately that we're lacking in TV Shows, films and books that portray characters worth emulating, portray someone you want to become, or whose existence is a breath of fresh air energizing you to become a better self.  Heroes who enjoy life, challenge, risk, and throw themselves into it with zest like Star Trek's Captain Kirk seem to be missing in action.  Jean Johnson's work may change that.

These two facts obtained from her website explain exactly why I fell in love with this series.  I respect this author -- vastly, emphatically, and unshakeably.

She's got two factor identification with me -- fanfic and Abuse Is Not Romantic.

This two-factor-identification between author and reader is a point I've made in several series of writing craft posts about targeting an audience and using theme to target an audience.

Ultimately, the people who like to read your novels are people who have an affinity for something you are saying, and therefore are willing to listen to you say it if only to disagree with you and discuss that disagreement with their friends who they will insist must read your books.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/index-to-theme-character-integration.html

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

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

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

There are a lot of technical craft problems with Theirs Not To Reason Why, a lot of scenes I'd have cut or condensed, many words I'd have cut, pacing that's just a bit off, characters I'd have framed differently, but there are two things Jean Johnson nailed to perfection that are worth studying:

1) Military Career (telescoped in time due to precognition, but realistic), 2) Precognition.

Johnson has postulated a theory of the nature of Time itself, and depicted it with ruthless consistency.

She has allowed for the vagueries of probability, thrown some curves at her Heroine, baited her with temptations to seek happiness instead of saving the galaxy.

This postulation of a theory of Precognition based on a concept of "Time" that holds water (well, tightly enough for fiction), makes these books "real" science fiction, not just a military action story set in space.

The presence of a Love Interest that is not allowed to blossom into full Romance because of the need to save the galaxy from invaders makes this not-quite-but-almost Romance.

The combination sets up an opening for other writers to explore.
The publishing industry is morphing and genres are being redefined.  Theirs Not To Reason Why by Jean Johnson is a pivotal, watershed work in the combining of Romance and Science Fiction.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the Alien Romance angle.  Ia, the Heroine, is only half-human --- she is half energy-creature with teleporting powers.  Her love interest is a human male.

Already a National Best Selling Author with a number of genuine Romance Novels to her credit (and more to come) Jean Johnson has our hearts in her hands and our minds in her clouds (or timestreams).

If you read nothing else the rest of this year, read Jean Johnson's Theirs Not To Reason Why series.

There are more novels set in this series universe yet to come, so you will want the series in your background.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com







Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Theme-Plot Integration Part 10 - Use of Co-incidence in Plot

We've been discussing a contrast/compare among 3 novel series, 20 novels in all.  This post is about these books, and contains spoilers as well as opinion and a suggested "take-away" from this study.

Here is a link to Part 8 where we launched into this 20-book comparison, and Part 9 with links to them all, and the index to previous parts:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-8-use-of-co.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-9-use-of-co.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/index-to-theme-plot-integration.html

Remember, posts with "Integration" in the title put together the craft skills we've discussed singly in previous posts.

Also remember, most of this "work" is done subconsciously.  A writer telling a story wouldn't be consciously aware of doing any of this.  Those who do it as a "Talent" and get goshwows for their adroit use of these skills probably learned them just by reading eclectically, not necessarily thinking about what they were reading. 

Here's where we discussed Talent in writers:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/talent-mystique-or-mistake.html

Inborn, innate "Talent" is often signified in a natal chart by a quincunx or quindecile between outer and inner planets (fame is totally different).  We observe the results of Talent from outside the person by noting how "easily" they pick up certain skills (the child prodigy on the piano). 

Theory is that this ease of learning happens because the actual hard-slogging up the learning curve was done in a previous life, and the Soul selected that ability to be brought into this life.

Theory is that any "person" has a Soul with many-many Talents, and this person you are dealing with "now" has only a smattering of the Talents he/she has stored in their Soul.  Some of what a person has now is relevant to what they're doing in this life -- some not at all relevant. 

We "observe" the shapes of lives from the outside by reading biographies -- from the "inside" by reading autobiographies (at least the ones actually written by the person named), and by watching the people around us for the patterns we saw reading those books.

That's why a writer's best work is usually not done in their teens or twenties.  It takes many years to read enough and observe enough people to perceive the patterns scattered deeds and events create.

As you read the rest of this series of Theme-Plot Integration posts, think about an ant crawling  up one of those huge, hanging tapestries you've seen in museums, the kind women used to make to hang in drafty castles. 

You sit on a bench ten feet away or more, and gaze upon the picture with all the different, entwined figures cavorting in different settings.  You see a lot of different scenes from one side of the tapestry to another.  Then you think about the scenes and you see an entire story of a Historical Event (such as a war) or perhaps the mythological gods and goddesses whose stories carried the philosophy of that Age.

But what does that ant see?  The ant doesn't have a human eye, or a human brain.  The ant may pick up strands from the colored threads, not discerning the color differences, just that the strand supports its little feet. 

If the ant were an Artist, it would infer the pattern and run back to the next and try to explain that pattern to other ants. 

We are ants trying to discern the pattern of our lives.  (yes, I know the answer is 42.) 

That underlying PATTERN is what Art reveals.  That pattern is what writers study.

A writer will go to the mall and people-watch, just as actors do.  Just sit and watch people juggle packages and kids and scramble from store to store -- think about "who" those people are and where they are inside one of those PATTERNS.

Finding a pattern in random dots is what artists do for a hobby.  For a living, artists SHOW YOU the pattern they see. 

The most commercial story-form today is the Novel.  It has developed over more than a century and diversified at various periods into a variety of genres. 

The commercial Novel is a very specific type of Work - it is a story with very specific shapes.  Academics like the word "trope" to describe such shapes.  Those who burn with a desire to shatter the art world as they see it often refer to a trope as a "formula." 

The worse opprobrium cast upon the most highly commercial fiction is the term "formulaic."

Once a formula or trope has become well enough known to a consuming market to be identified as "formulaic,"  that particular shape is on its way out of the commercial fiction arena. 

Since we live our everyday lives amidst a turbulent sea of unrelated, even random, dots of information, Events, and tasks, we love to relax with a nice, predictable STORY we can trust to deliver as expected.

But since we live amidst those random dots, and can't see what patterns Artists see  amidst the random, we just plain don't believe fiction that we can see "through" -- that we can see a pattern in, that we can see the formula behind.

So writers spend a lot of time disguising the bare bones behind their stories, the "plot."

Just as Hollywood producers want "the same but different" so also editors want "the same but different" because viewers/readers want "the same but different."

Fiction consumers want that predictable formula, but they don't want to be able to SEE it. 

If your reader can see the bones, the formula, the PLOT, the story is not plausible.  But if your reader can find no bones, no formula, no PLOT, the story is not plausible.

In other words, there has to BE a plot, and it must be something resembling the "plots" that subsume the everyday reality of the consumer's world, but your plot has to be as invisible as the plot of your reader's real life is.

How do you make a plot, a pattern you've striven to discern in reality for years and years, into something invisible underlying your story?

You cloak your Plot in the flesh of Theme.

Just as no two human beings look identical, but all have bones, no two stories look identical but they all have a plot.

The essence of all those plots is conflict.

All novel type stories are the story of a conflict that is resolved.

And the same is true of a series of novels (or a TV Series).  Here is a conflict.  Here's how it got resolved.  Here's the resolution. 

That's the bones, the plot, the part which, if it somehow sticks out of flesh that's too lean, will disappoint or disgust readers who need the mixed-mashup of random dots that they see in real life around them. 

So let's look at the three novel series we're studying.

In Part 9 we ended up with theme sketches:

-------quote--------
Corine Solomon is in love with a guy whose Talent is "Luck."  That has a whole backstory having to do with his parentage, but the point is that Talent and Luck (co-incidence) drives the plot of all 5 of the Corine Solomon novels.

(Alien Series) Kitty-Kat has a Talent for organizing other Talents, for leading a group of talented warriors while Luck sweeps her through personal combat, chase scenes and armed combat.  She remembers what's worked before and uses it to good effect again.  But her real Talent is for asking Question -- yes, capital Q questions, such as Kirk's "What does God need a spaceship for?"  Those are the obvious questions nobody else ever thinks of because people rely on assumptions they haven't tested when trying to solve a problem.

Sten has a Talent for surviving.  He learns the Art of War, but it isn't inherent in him.  He finally grows up enough that all he wants is to stay out of combat situations.  But he's living a Destiny, so the harder he tries to avoid combat, the worse the combat gets.  His Talent doesn't help him get out of his Destiny, which he can't even see coming -- any more than you can see a tornado coming until it's too late.

Perhaps the overall theme of the Sten Series is that forging the path to your destiny must inevitably affect, deflect, or inflect the paths of others toward their destinies. 

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

The Corine Solomon novels by Ann Aguirre are action/romance with paranormal dimensions added.  They are essentially Romance, with a main character (Corine) who starts out striving for independence and loving being independent -- but galled by the boyfriend she is separated from.

The PLOT is basically, an Independent Woman perfectly satisfied with being independent, pursuant to her own code of Honor, helps those who help her.  In so doing, she rescues her boyfriend from (literally) beyond Death and marries him. 

They separated basically over his Luck -- terrible trouble would strike, followed by harrowing, heart-stopping adventure, narrow misses, and escape.  It was a life-pattern she couldn't stand and he couldn't stand inflicting on her.  She, too, has a paranormal talent - she can touch an object and read it's history.  She applies that Talent to earn a living in antiques.  But then she gets mixed up in (by "sheer co-incidence") Mexican gangland wars, and the harder she tries the worse it gets (by ever more improbable co-incidences).  Co-incidence, happenstance, and luck drive the problems into her path.  She solves those problems by repeated applications of "doing the right thing regardless of the odds" and (by co-incidence) Wins (temporarily.) 

Corine is a problem-solver by nature, and views each of the disasters that befalls her as a problem to be solved.  At the end of the final book,  Agave Kiss, she rescues her boyfriend/lover from beyond Death (he's a half-breed son of a god, so when he dies his father tries to make him into a working god).  This is an application of the plot-bones of mythical stories -- they always work in fiction.  And in the process she gives up her original Talent, so now she can't read objects.  He proposes in a romantic setting smacking of the opening sequences. 

In the final Corine Solomon novel, the author Ann Aguirre (on twitter https://twitter.com/MsAnnAguirre  )  mentions that she didn't think her editor had confidence in her ability to bring the series to the Happily Ever After (HEA) ending required for the "trope" or formula, but here it is and it is an HEA.  Yes, indeed it is exactly that.  Corine Solomon got what she wanted (even needed) even though she didn't know in the beginning of the series that this was what she had to have. 

Because of the paranormal dimensions involved in the worldbuilding, the Corine Solomon Novels are a good example of how to use co-incidence in plotting and produce something other-worldly that resembles our everyday lives. 

The ALIEN SERIES by Gini Koch is a bit more than a Romance. 

The 7th Alien Series novel comes out this month, May 2013, and Gini says on twitter (  http://twitter.com/GiniKoch ) she has contracts through book 11 with plans for more beyond that.  So it's hard to sum up right now, but let's try.

It doesn't END with the marriage to an Alien, but goes on to challenge that marriage, beget a child, and change the world that child will grow up within (with the infant's Talents helping). 

In that, it resembles the Sten Series more closely than it does the Corine Solomon series.  The two series are about an existing "order of things" that is challenged by introduction of a New Element, with the resulting instability resolved by a Hero (Kitty Kat or Sten) who "does the right thing regardless" just as Corine Solomon does. 

The setting for the Alien Series is Earth plus one other Planetary System inhabited by Aliens, and a backdrop of a galaxy out there somewhere (filled with threats). 

The Plot of the Alien Series might be stated as "Woman who thinks she's an ordinary human who doesn't believe in co-incidence just by co-incidence walks into a battle between Aliens resident on Earth and Aliens inimical to the well-being of Earth, and completely by "accident" wins the battle and the undying love of one of the Aliens resident on Earth.  She keeps on doing the right thing, which includes fixing up the world to be hospitable for her child." 

Kitty Kat's Talent for asking the obscurely obvious Questions is a result of her disbelief in co-incidence.  She keeps trying to connect the dots of her life into a Pattern, absolutely sure there is a pattern there somewhere.  And she keeps finding those patterns where nobody else can find them.  She acts on the pattern she sees, and "co-incidence" and "luck" pursue her.

A theme can be discerned by connecting those bits of co-incidence.  Let's look at the Sten Series.  There are 8 novels extant, and on the fanfiction blog-post (once a year, on Empire Day) Allan Cole has posted a possible opening chapter for Book 9. 

http://stencole.blogspot.com/2013/03/sten-9-return-of-sten.html

STEN starts with a young boy, child of indentured servants (slaves really) on a high-tech manufacturing Space Station.  He sees the life his parents live (and die in) and where the kids of other parents likewise indentured live, and every cell in his body says NO! 

Sten defects, fights the system, grows to maturity as a "rat in the walls" of the Station, fighting every step of the way.  Eventually, the station is invaded by representatives of The Eternal Emperor, and Sten "is rescued" because of his fighting prowess -- and sheerest, dumbest, purebred and insane LUCK.  Absolute co-incidence changes his life as he participates (using his hard-won skills as a wall-rat) in the combat between the Station owner and the Emperor's Representative (very similar to the kickoff Event of the Alien Novels). 

The writing rule is that you can use CO-INCIDENCE to kick off a plot, to start a story, -- happenstance and accident (i.e. Uranus transits) often change our life-direction so it's plausible that trouble comes via co-incidence, because that's generally how it seems to us in our "reality."

But from a writer's point of view, it isn't random dots.  Co-incidences and accidents "happen" because of some inherent, intrinsic, basic, unknown-to-ourselves, trait we hold within our innermost psyche.  It is our Soul ramming through into external Reality, that "creates a stirring in The Force" -- that moves the currents of Time And Space -- that somehow effects the random Events like a magnet attracting filings, and brings "things" into our lives that disrupt existing patterns.

Consider the axiom: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. 

That is a pithy saying, an adage, a bit of Wisdom of the Ages (has a basis in Kabbalah, as the Light of Good attracts the klippot for a perfectly Good reason), and it's more than irony or pessimism. 

Somehow, the sum total of all our generations observing "life" has distilled this bit of wit from random Events.  No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.

There is a relationship between what you DO and what HAPPENS TO YOU, but it is not cause/effect.  There's no way to game the system, or bribe G-d. 

You could say (theme is a philosophy) that no bad deed goes unrewarded. 

There are tons of self-help books about Why Good Things Happen To Bad People, or vice-versa.

It's not "cause/effect" which is the basis of all Science, but it's not Random either. 

There is a pattern -- some call it "poetic justice."  What goes around comes around.  As you sow; so shall  you reap. 

There's a reason the ancients developed the idea of "The Music of the Spheres."  The universe we live in can be described by mathematics, and so can music.  Poetry and music thrum within us all, so when we see a plot "come full circle" as songs and poems do, finishing what was started on the same "note" -- we feel satisfied, vindicated, safe in our comprehension of our reality. 

Ancient Greek and Roman fiction is filled with tales of Destiny, Fate, mighty Heroes fighting with their gods (mostly losing in the end).  Those civilizations were based on "you can't win" but our civilization is based on David and Goliath, and "The Bigger They Are The Harder They Fall."  We champion the Little Guy, and the Little Guy wins -- that's poetic justice to us.

Sten is a Little Guy who at first gives his innocent loyalty to The Eternal Emperor, finally gets to meet the Emperor in person and see him as a rather ordinary seeming Being, smart but not infallible. 

In the typical Uranus transit, we assert ourselves, our most true-to-self core identity comes roaring out into the world with massive amounts of built up energy behind it.  (here's an index to posts on Astrology Just For Writers)

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

So Sten's desire for freedom comes exploding out of him when the oppressive Establishment that basically consumed his parents, is under attack by a larger, unseen and not-understood by him, authority.  Using all the skills and tools he's developed over years, he gets himself caught up in a CONFLICT between the Emperor and one of the Emperor's (apparently) Loyal Subjects -- between the Emperor and the corruption that the Emperor's governing style allows to suppurate. 

That corruption (the indentured servitude thing) has shaped Sten's personality, drive, ambition and view of reality, as well as his Values.  He has a lot to learn, but what he learned before his rescue is what eventually generates his ultimate response to the Emperor's behavior. 

Having been rescued, he willingly gives his loyalty to The Emperor (well, The Empire), and becomes a soldier, then a member of an Elite Service.  He climbs the ladder to high command and even to Ambassador speaking for the Emperor -- but by that time, it's a very changed Emperor. 

Sten grew up rejecting the oppressive regime of a slaver, and now discovers -- very slowly over the millennia, the Eternal Emperor has slowly been deteriorating.  The current reincarnation of the Emperor is not the man Sten first met -- this one is insane, a mad dictator worse than the slaver who killed Sten's parents.

This Empire sprawls over so many galaxies, is peopled by so many Beings, that the picture Sten must find amidst the random dots is very blurry.  Remember that ant crawling on the tapestry we mentioned above?  That's Sten -- trying to understand The Empire, and what has happened to The Eternal Emperor -- and why it's all gone bad.

Sten's path from wall-rat to Emperor's Nemesis appears, point by point, assignment by assignment, to be a Random Walk -- a path of co-incidence, chance, and luck.

And in so appearing, that path states the overall theme of the Sten Series.

What is that theme?  Well, I don't know and I doubt even the authors Chris Bunch and Allan Cole, actually know for sure.  I think though, that Allan Cole has a very good idea of what it is saying.

As I see Sten's Path -- it says that we all bear the seeds of our destruction within us.  We scatter those seeds and sometimes it takes so long for our seeds to germinate, grow, and bear fruit that comes hunting us that we don't recognize our destruction when it comes back at us.  But it comes from within.

That is not a theme unique to The Sten Series; rather it is a technique all great writers use to replicate in fiction the pattern of life we observe from our eyes, (as the ant on the tapestry.)

The deep subconscious conflicts within your main character generate the Plot Events outside that character, the Events that cause him Joy and Sorrow, Elation and Grief. 

The antagonist, the Nemesis, of a character is the reflection of the character's deepest unconscious.

Sten's unconscious was "programmed" because of his origin as a slave's child, to need to destroy Authority. 

He fought to free himself of oppression (mid-series he "retires" to an idyllic world he has earned enough to buy, and nearly goes crazy because there's no oppression to fight any more), and gave himself to a bigger, more elaborately disguised by random-dots oppressor, the Eternal Emperor.

All along the path, Sten fought to free others of oppression, to serve freedom, to make the Empire a better place, and so his skills (gained as a wall-rat) generated miraculous wins that catapulted him on a meteoric rise to the Emperor's good graces.

But the velocity of that rise (the sheer Uranus/Aquarius Power for Freedom), made him an Individual (Uranus) to the Emperor -- and that velocity itself could only be seen as a threat to the Emperor who had lost his own sense of Individuality, his own sense of uniqueness (Uranus). 

Uranus rules accidents.  And individuality.  And Aquarius -- The Age of Aquarius. 

And this is where the themes of the Corine Solomon novels, the Alien novels, and the Sten novels resonate harmoniously, different instruments in the same orchestra playing the same symphony.  Art. 

Corine Solomon is Fantasy, the Alien novels blend Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Sten is just Science Fiction.  Yet they're all made of the same thematic stuff.

We might term that stuff Co-incidence, or Luck, or Destiny. 

The heroic plot is crafted from the thematic substance of how the Individual projects the Self onto the substance of reality, crafts the world in which he lives.

The exterior World you build around your character to cradle them and display them (as a jeweler displays a diamond on black velvet) is molded from the subconscious of your character.

Whether that truly reflects how our real world works, how life works, or not, is irrelevant to the Art underlying story-craft.  It is how we SEE the lives people around us live.

We see people get their comeuppance -- oh, not right away, to be sure, but get it they do.

But we don't see what happens to ourselves as our own comeuppance.  At least, not the first few times it happens. 

Maturity might be defined as the ability to see how you deserve what happens to you, so that when something you don't deserve happens to you, you know for sure that you didn't deserve it.

In that clarity of knowing the difference between what he deserves and does not deserve, in his maturity, Sten decides he must take down the Eternal Emperor.  This Destiny has chosen him. 

And so Sten turns and stops running from the bald fact that the Emperor is now no different from the owner of the slave-factory space station where he grew up.  And Sten takes him down. 

The Sten Series is not a Romance with an inevitable and obvious Happily Ever After.  It's not about finding a Soul Mate -- it's about first finding the Freedom (Uranus) from tyranny (Saturn) that will allow Sten to be able to notice and identify his Soul Mate. 

The Corine Solomon Series, the Alien Series, and the Sten Series all have that one Plot element in common, Co-incidence that is NOT REALLY CO-INCIDENTAL.

The co-incidences and luck that beset the Main Character arises from the Main Character's own character, mostly subconscious. 

Their world arranges itself to challenge them to grow and mature into someone who can surmount one final challenge and achieve an objective. 

Originally a Hero was a half-god/half-human Being who could do things normal humans can't (Hercules), but who shared human foibles, faults and were subject to the whims of the gods.  They usually fought the gods and their destiny.

Today a Hero is a human who comes to do something he/she couldn't do before - who matures into a more powerful Being by meeting challenges to their weakest spots.

Very often they die during this process.  But sometimes they survive maimed, with new challenges to overcome. 

These 20 novels are stories of how a Hero matures.  The theme they share is that of co-incidence arising apparently in response to a Hero's actions/feelings/movement.  The plots are crafted from how the Hero creates co-incidences-to-order without having a clue that they're doing that.

These 20 novels are extremely hard to analyze for a distinction between Theme and Plot because the themes and the plots are fully integrated.  Only the author can know, and usually it's better that they don't know. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com