Showing posts with label Srugim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Srugim. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration Part 11 - Arranging Marriages

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration
Part 11
Arranging Marriages

Previous posts in this series for advanced writers on blending individual techniques so readers never notice you did anything are:

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

The previous entry in this series of posts is about How To Marry A Billionaire.  It used to be "millionaire" - but, inflation, you know.

The symbolism of "rich" is desirable not just for looks, but prowess.  The self-made billionaire is sexy because he/she can provide for children and ease the burden of motherhood with maidservants etc.

Considering what happens when a billionaire comes into the spotlight of the media, do you really want to be the spouse of such a hot property?

Hmmm.

Check out this series of posts on symbolism:

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

The billionaire is the one-step-solution to all life's problems rolled up into one symbol - being rich.  Likewise the Duke, the King, the Prince -- all the royal titles or heirs to such titles come with the implication of rich, and an easy life.

But novels are not about living EASY.  Easy is what happens after the novel is over - (or the series) - in the HEA part of existence.  To get to the HEA, you gotta suffer!  And you have to work for that ending, really work, searcher your soul, change your habits.  (My Fair Lady!)

So to marry your Soul Mate, you have to know your own Soul.

Generally, readers (in any genre) don't buy a book to learn how to search their own Soul, but will remember a book that illustrated (in show don't tell) how to determine what you really want in life.  You only know you got the right answer decades later, when having what you want has gone on-and-on until it becomes the norm.

Novels can happen at the point where that norm is threatened, and the Characters must question whether they made good choices as children.  Most often, those characters, slogging through those confrontations, are ancillary characters, supporting players (not spear carriers or red-shirts).

So here we'll study how the World you build shows (without telling) how to determine what you really want in Life.

I suggest you watch 2 TV Series, one on Netflix and one on Amazon Prime, imported TV Series with English subtitles (that aren't always accurate).

1. Srugim on Amazon Prime

2. Shtisel on Netflix

If they aren't there when you read this, Google around a bit.  They are popular for a reason.  But companies are playing games of keep-away against viewers these days.

We discussed Srugim here
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/01/cozy-science-fiction-part-1-by.html

The world it is set in might as well be another planet full of people who aren't quite comprehensible to normal humans.  They march to a different drummer.

In Srugim, the Characters in the drama are all young people searching for a true mate, and over the course of 3 seasons, most of them settle down.

In Shtisel (the word is a family name), we see a whole family with grandparents, retirement age parents, and adult children with young children approaching marriageable age.

It is a family drama set in a world most viewers have to learn as they go, but since it is not an American made series, it assumes the viewer knows things Americans probably don't know (or think they know the opposite).

Shtisel has been hailed as a breaker of stereotypes, and as such is worth studying carefully -- because writers of Science Fiction/Paranormal Romance are breaking stereotypes.  Most of the blow-back against the HEA ending is coming from that source -- people are comfortable inside their "world" composed of stereotypes, and find it painful when you break them.

The Theme of Shtisel might be stated thusly:

A) Ancestry Matters
or
B)  To maintain coherence, a family must change with the World they live in.
or
C) No family can survive in a changing world.
or
D) Religion doesn't help anyone understand the World around them.

It's unclear which theme would be more descriptive, and that lack of clarity is the problem with this TV Series.  At the same time, the lack of clarity in the theme is what makes this TV Series about the role of Romance in Marriage worth studying for all writers -- most especially Romance sub-genre writers.

The plots of the episodes turn on marriages broken (widowhood, abandonment, divorce), and marriages made or mended.  The only solid, continuing marriage is almost completely off-stage.  The episodes are set in Jerusalem, and the successful religiously solid couple lives in Tel Aviv and has adopted different practices from their ancestors.

The Tel Aviv couple's only interaction with the main story line is to invite the (stubborn, reluctant) grandfather to come teach Judaism to their children who are learning a different tradition.  It's a little like Catholics vs. Protestants, but not really the same thing.

So one stray, modernized, couple mends estrangement from ancestors -- but that whole story line is barely mentioned.

The main plots turn on a young Rabbi with a nice teaching position in a primary school environment where his father has taught, and eventually becomes Principle.  But the young Rabbi wants to be an artist and paint portraits, thus estranging himself from his entire family.

A daughter of the Rabbi's father is married with 4 then 5 children, is abandoned by her husband, but keeps that quiet, lies about it, and supports her family by herself, by taking over the (somewhat illicit) currency-exchanging business of an old widow in the same Care Facility as the grandmother of the young artist-Rabbi.  Her lies are rewarded when her strayed husband comes home, and she takes the advice of another Rabbi to not-know too much about what happened.

Another brother with a marriageable daughter comes back from Europe looking for a husband for his daughter, and thus a Matchmaker (time-honored profession) is brought on stage.

We follow several attempts to match a couple in the ultra-orthodox way that is still rather successful in these modern times.

All the while that meetings are being arranged for possible young couples, we see all the men involved sitting over books, studying Torah and Talmud on the adult level, as we see the elementary school students being introduced to the material.

This is their World, framed by ancient laws of how to behave gently and forgivingly to other people.  These are the Characters - members of a family with a lot in common, and even more in divergent interests and standards of behavior.  And that is the Plot -- get married, already!  All of the Themes suggested above surface many times, but none of the themes actually crystalize.

The reason the Themes in the TV Series Shtisel don't sizzle off the screen with vivid portraits illustrating how to decide what you want out of Life, which mate is right for you, what sort of destiny you want to guide your family toward, is not a flaw in what is there on your TV Screen.

The reason the Themes of Shtisel don't crystalize properly is what is missing from that TV Screen.

That missing material is what we'll focus on here, despite all the other elements worth delving into.

The element missing from your TV screen is one that can be crafted very smoothly in a novel, printed text, but is commercially impossible (so far) in a TV Series.

You'd have to break a stereotype to get the fully realized THEME that belongs to the TV Series Shtisel (and even to Srugim) onto public TV Screens.

You'd have to SHOW DON'T TELL how the Hand of God moves the real world, in everyday reality.  In other words, you'd have to convince your readers that their world actually does have the potential to deliver to them a Happily Ever After ending for their lives, an ending that leaves an indelible legacy stretching back to the Beginning, the family of humanity.

The stereotype that lulls people into security is the portrayal of every person who understands God as a real, close, present force in this World is just deluded into superstition.

The production company behind Srugim and Shtisel, "YES" is their English name, probably couldn't get that kind of disruptive stereotype-breaking show on the air, and I'm not sure if anyone on their staff actually understands the HEA or Soul Mates as a concept.  I don't think they know what a Matchmaker really is -- at least not from the Character portrayed in Shtisel.

But if they could, if Shtisel were a Romance Novel (and it has all the makings of hot-stuff Romance), what could they add that isn't on the screen now?  What could draw that show-don't-tell image of how to recognize what you really want in life -- at first glance.

The principle behind the Matchmaker concept is that such an individual is very close to God, very much an instrument of the Creator of the Universe, and is given prophetic insight beyond the simple facts about a person's ancestry and temperament.

Matchmakng is a divine profession.

But it only works if the young people behind matched are enough in tune with their Creator, enough attuned to their own Souls, to be open on the highest wavelengths, and able to recognize their Soul Mate and fall in love at first sight.

The young, matched, couple only gets two or three brief meetings in a public setting to determine whether to marry.  It has to be love at first sight, and that's not a quality of the person you are looking at, but rather a quality of yourself.

So, given this TV Series is about the arranged marriage, thematically it lacks the dimension of an explanation of how and why matchmaking works, and what could prevent it from working.

Conflict is the essence of story.

Conflict means there is a goal, a reason to reach the goal, and an obstacle to prevent reaching that goal.  The conflict is between the goal-directed person and the obstacle.

Shtisel has that conflict laid out nicely.  The Characters have internal conflicts that are projected into their lives, reflected in the other Characters.

But the plot never addresses the reason why the obstacle is there, or the methods of removing or surmounting the obstacle.

The thematic element completely missing from this TV Series is the content of the material we see everyone studying.

Because we are not given the content of what is being learned, we can't notice how or whether the behaviors and events in the family's daily life illustrate that wisdom contained in that content.  If the content were added, though, the writers would have had to add a Character and change the character (and eventual fate) of the Matchmaker, then play the two off against each other to illustrate the dynamics driving the religious lifestyle.

One thing the American audience might miss because it's not mentioned in the series, is that there are specific pages of specific books assigned to be learned on specific days.

Because it is a set calendar, if the content were specified, it would date the show, and that might prevent it from surviving enough years to earn back its investment.

However, because it is a set bit to be learned, what does happen in real life, too often to be mere coincidence, the content of that assigned page to be learned does manifest in surrounding Reality.

It is just plain spooky how often that happens.  It happens so often that when it doesn't happen, someone who pays attention to correlations knows that they've missed something.  It happened, but you just didn't see it.

So the characterization of the TV Characters is just plain "off" somehow.  Several of them are Rabbis, and the rest learn and pray routinely.  But they don't understand their World in terms of those assigned readings.

What little is revealed of the content is contrived to sound boring and irrelevant (when in fact it is not).  With one exception, each Character who is studying from a book gets interrupted and just ignores what they're reading as if the interruption is more interesting and compelling than the material.  The exception is a very mentally disturbed young man no one in the audience wants to become.  (he gets saved by the woman who falls in love with him)

The stereotype the series did not break is how for normal people, Talmud is boring to learn, and religion is an irrelevant waste of time that just keeps you from having fun in life, or a refuge for the unbalanced.  Religion can't be the key for understanding what's really happening in the real world.

The stereotype the series did break is how helpless and illiterate the women of arranged marriages are.

All of the women Characters in Shtisel read, learn, and think for themselves.  They are dynamic businesswomen, faithful employees with skills and talents, adventurous and indomitable -- just like real people.

These women who have chosen husbands who were suggested to them by a Matchmaker are not helpless victims of an outmoded system.  They are the backbone of the family heritage.  They matter.  They count.  They make their own decisions and carry them out vigorously.  And sometimes they choose a husband who was not selected by the matchmaker!  Sometimes that works out very well.

So, dig up this TV Series, Shtisel -- and the other I've discussed, Srugim.  You will visit an alien world, and learn how to create a Romance with an Alien that will put your Characters on a glide-path to their own, individualized, Happily Ever After ending.

Really - having a blast watching TV is not wasting time.  To be the writer you were born to be, you have to understand why this TV Series, Shtisel, couldn't live up to its potential.  Use that knowledge to build the world your Romance Novel needs.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Cozy Science Fiction Part 1 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Cozy Science Fiction
Part 1
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

You all know the genre sub-division called Cozy Mystery.  I've been reading a lot of those lately, and enjoying the amateur detective/Romance genre blend. 

Here is a gorgeous example of a Cozy Romantic Mystery series.  

This is by the justly famous writer, Debra Burroughs.  

And boy are these great novels!  Fabulous series. Highly recommended.

The Paradise Mystery series starts with the lead Character, Emily Parker, facing life after her husband is murdered.  Beset by financial ruin and major trauma, she takes over her late husband's private detective business -- and begins to unfold, unwrap, delve into, and discover layer upon layer of "my world was never what it seemed to be."  She deemed herself "happy" -- and now finds what she thought her life was actually was only a thin, brittle facade.  She becomes a scientist of sorts, insistently researching the truth of the matter of her husband's death (and many other mysteries).  

So this series starts with a life catastrophe of the main character, but the world around her is stable.  The world is not what she thought it was, but it holds still while she figures out what is really going on.

"What is really going on..." is the main theme of the Alien Series by Gini Koch.  I've just finished reading her ALIEN NATION:


I find these two series, while very different, have a similar feel to them.
In the Paradise Valley Mysteries, the main Character's world has fallen apart leaving a shattered mess of apparently disconnected mysteries preventing her from building a new life.
In Gini Koch's Alien Series, the main Character Kitty finds "love at first sight" practically on the first page of book 1, and that love sucks her into situation after situation that is not what it seems, though the catastrophe she must avert each time is very real, and very destructive.  
Story is always about the point in a life's arc where things go wrong, go badly, go strangely, or just go to pieces.  Take Bilbo Baggins -- nice, stable, safe life until magical adventure comes calling.  Where the conflicting elements meet is where the story and the plot begin.  And sometimes your biggest conflict is with an ally.
So science fiction, often about combat or war, very commonly starts or contains a catastrophe.  

Here is a quote from a website page about Cozy Catastrophe Science Fiction:

-------quote----------
What is Cosy Catastrophe Science Fiction?

The Cosy Catastrophe, or Cozy Catastrophe depending on where you learned English, is a narrowly defined sub-genre that was hugely popular in the 1950s and 60s, especially in Britain. The term was first used by Brian Aldiss in Billion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction, describing John Wyndham's books: “The essence of cosy catastrophe is that the hero should have a pretty good time (a girl, free suites at the Savoy, automobiles for the taking) while everyone else is dying off.”

More generally, Cosy Catastrophe features an upheaval that significantly changes the world, usually many many people die, but the event itself is rather short lived and the characters in the story don't dwell on it. The world itself is an everyday sort of world, it's familiar (and therefore “cosy”), it's even sometimes a bit of a retreat—a new life where you get to quit your day job and steal luxury cars. The world may be falling apart, but you can still enjoy a cup of tea and rejoice in the fact that you don't have to deal with your boss on Monday.


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

I cheerfully disagree with Brian Aldiss whose scholarship and fiction writing are impeccably British and unquestionably the foundation of the science fiction field.

I also disliked John Wyndham's novels -- not because they were badly done, but because they do not depict the essential realities of the world that I see.  

My disagreements with the 1940's founders of science fiction are mostly a matter of taste.  I see Aliens as potential Romantic Interest -- and maybe more than just interest.

And so while these great men have established the field of science fiction, and while I grew up reading their work, I see the world as energized by love, and driven toward union and family.  A stable world arises from stable love.  

"Happily Ever After" is one form of stability.  

So I see a market for science fiction where the Characters are fully engaged in their world, as Debra Burroughs and Gini Koch both depict.  Catastrophe may come to a Character's personal life, or to the world they live in, but in every instance the real story happens when the Character dives into the Catastrophe and sets things right again by doing the Impossible, thus changing the definition of Possible.

Where the Characters' actions affect their world, and where love conquers all (not where love retreats from all)  is where Science Fiction, Mystery, and Romance genres come together.

Not all science fiction plots contain a catastrophe - though that is a sub-genre that becomes popular in bleak times - but all science fiction contains a mystery and a voyage of discovery, an adventure outside ordinary life or what the Character has considered to be ordinary even if it is not.  Kitty, Gini Koch's main character, is always greeting the bizarre, unreal, monstrous challenges as "routine."  That is the attitude of the Science Fiction Character -- strange is normal.

This Brian Aldiss definition of Cozy Catastrophe Science Fiction does describe a popular, extant genre.  But here, on Alien Romance, we can explore the Literature of Ideas where the Idea we write about is Love Conquers All and the Idea that Happily Ever After is possible, even perhaps inevitable.

Mystery has always been a sister-genre to science fiction aiming at the same target audience.  Mystery and Science Fiction both appeal to people who love to think, puzzle, analyze, and play games with the writer to see if they can figure out the solution to the question the writer is posing before the Characters do.

In Mystery, it may be "who-dun-it" or maybe "why-dun-it" or a jousting match between detective (professional or amateur) and a criminal (mastermind or less).  Gini Koch does create marvelous Criminal Masterminds! 

In Science Fiction, it may be "how can we do this" or "how did "they" do that?" or "that's impossible -- unless..."

Science is all about mystery - about following clues and unraveling the tangle of Natural Law to make sense of reality.  And Mystery solving uses the scientific method.  

Fiction is all about people -- human or not -- who have problems they regard as formidable.  

The writer's job in fiction is to convince the reader that the Character's problems actually are formidable -- and pose the question, "What would you do in her place?"

In Romance, the question the writer poses is narrower, but because of the narrow focus (this guy or that one? This woman or that one? This spouse or none? Where is the path to happily ever after, behind door one or door two?) the issues Romance deals with are vastly more complicated, more complex, more nebulous and more urgent.  

Mystery, Science Fiction, Westerns, and Fantasy or Paranormal Romance are all "fiction" first.  

To have a story, you must have a Character who is living through events that impact the Character's sense of identity.  As the Character changes Identity to adapt to his/her new reality, the Character is said to "Arc."  Traits mature, but don't change or disappear.  A Nag will continue to Nag -- but about different things.  A Complainer will continue to Complain - but more effectively and efficiently.  

The "genre" label appropriate for any given Character's story depends in large part on the target market - on the group of Readers who buy that story, enjoy it, and look for more like it.  Remember, Hollywood and Publishing are always looking for "the same but different."  That's how genre develops.

Right across all the genres, Mystery, Science Fiction, Westerns, Thrillers, International Intrigue, and Fantasy/Paranormal, we see how the Character's initial idea of their identity changes under the impact of discovering that what they thought was so is in fact not-so. 

This discombobulation, consternation, cognitive dissonance element does not appear in all Best Sellers, or Literature that is not considered "genre."  A lot of people do not find it fun or amusing to be confused or disabused of their certainties.  Science Fiction readers love that feeling - "Oh, was I wrong, or what!"  Or they love to watch other people be astonished.  You see this in the Romance genre, too.  

For example, the "confirmed bachelor" who is convinced Romance is imaginary and he'll never marry is ripe for a "Love At First Sight" experience.  And the woman he "sees" is very likely also self-sufficient and settled into a career that has no place for "him."  The two collide with fireworks.  

As they re-arrange their self-images, they must re-arrange their lives, create a "we" out of "me."  

The thing with Romance is that it deals with Happiness -- or maybe just the pursuit of happiness.  The Romance master theme is "Bonding With Your Soul-Mate Leads To Happily Ever After."  

In the favorite, best selling theme structures of Romance genre you find implicit assumptions that The Soul is real -- that humans are more than animal bodies -- and that "Happiness" has to include some satisfaction on the Soul Level Of Existence as well as physical comfort.  When you leave the Soul Mate element out of the worldbuilding, you end up with soft porn, not Romance.  

One theme is that a woman must have a fulfilling career -- a sequence of positions in life which, when traveled through, produce Soul Satisfaction.  That's a "theme" as we have discussed exhaustively.  

An alternative theme would be that female humans do not have souls.  Or that if they do, being female means careers can not satisfy their souls.  Any anti-feminist statement you find outrageous enough to write about will do for a theme. 

If you're writing Science Fiction Romance, the worldbuilding would then include Aliens who a) have no souls, b)have souls and don't know it, c) have different sorts of souls, d) are reincarnated human souls either rewarded or punished for behavior when human by being reincarnated as this type of Alien.  

"What if ...?" Souls are real?  The reality of Souls is a thematic premise. It can be treated as Paranormal Romance, or nuts and bolts science fiction.

"What if ...?"  Souls are created by God, creates one branch of themes -- and another "Souls are not created by God because there is no God," creates another branch of themes.  

We saw "Souls Exist But Not Created By God" handled very well in The Flicker Men, which I reviewed here. 
 I reviewed this is some depth here:
THE FLICKER MEN is a brilliant science based presentation of the concept "soul is real,"  a must read for Romance writers - mostly because it is not Romance.
Another way to find a readership to target is to study TV Series that flash to popularity then disappear without being copied.  Usually, several such TV Series will appear and vanish before one genre-bender like Star Trek comes along.  

Watching TV for the presentation of what you might term The Romance Problem (how do you sell the Happily Ever After premise to those who can't accept it?) can be instructive.

I stumbled upon such an odd TV Series on Amazon Prime last year.  Puzzling over why I liked it, I decided it was Cozy Science Fiction (not catastrophic).  

It is about a group of unmarried twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings who have substantial education and careers -- men and women alike, formidable people.  These are the sorts of people who make great Science Fiction heroes.  

Their adventures are "cozy" in that they don't involve space battles, explosions, destruction derbies, or fight-for-your-life situations at the core of their adventures.

Their trying, angst-focusing adventures are into the land of speed dating, coffee dating, dress up dating, or just trying to find someone to date.  At first, they are not looking so much for Romance as they are for someone to marry and settle down with.  

The TV Series is called Srugim, a Hebrew word meaning crochet or knit, the kind of stitching used to make an Israeli yarmulke.  The show is in Hebrew with English subtitles.  
When I was in college, I used to spend a lot of time in the campus theater where they showed foreign films in various languages, often without subtitles.  I loved it.  Today I watch streaming!  

So we in the USA have this foreign made TV Series, aimed at a foreign audience. Can you imagine a richer research environment for the Alien Romance writer?

You've seen the Cozy Mystery burst onto the scene, and decades ago Brian Aldiss defined the Cozy Catastrophe Science Fiction as being about people ignoring a catastrophe around them.  Romance often does that -- vanquishes the real world for a time.  

Maybe it is time for the Cozy Science Fiction genre to blossom, and I think the documented popularity of this TV Series import, Srugim, is indicative of how ripe the USA audience is for this type of show.  Yet, there aren't that many imitators easily found.

Here is an article about this HIT TV SERIES - that just vanished without spawning a genre (yet).


---------quote---------
... Accurate portrayals of Orthodox Jews in American films or on television are hard to come by. Good female characters are especially rare, usually appearing onscreen as either oppressed or unnaturally saintly (see “A Price Above Rubies,” “A Stranger Among Us”.)

But “Srugim” (written and directed by Laizy Shapira, himself an observant Jew) comes with complex female characters who have commitment issues, religious struggles, and romantic baggage (a lot of romantic baggage). Modern Orthodox young, single professionals can finally see themselves on onscreen. Although created by a man, the show is especially good at portraying the female characters’ complicated relationships with their tradition.

In the first episode of the series, Reut, the high-powered accountant, is seen both dumping a suitor who is uncomfortable with her salary and reciting Friday night Kiddush to the amazement of the men at the Shabbat table. While openly feminist, Reut is constantly being drawn to what she sees as a more normative Orthodox lifestyle. When she pretends to be married to another character in order to help him keep his job, she outwardly mocks her “fake homemaker” identity but inwardly is wistful.
----------end quote------

Do read this article with an eye to how it portrays the life and struggles of a human woman swept away to an Alien Planet, trying to find a stable identity.

Srugim is a TV Series about contemporary human beings in their workaday world, but illustrates just how to create an Alien Romance novel.  Still, it was a surprise "hit" and even bigger surprise that it is popular in the USA, too.  "They," the professional purveyors of entertainment, have no idea what they are dealing with when they touch our field.  

You may still be able to find this TV Series on Amazon Prime:


Jacqueline Lichtenberg