SHOW ME THE LOVE!
All Kinds of Love for All Kinds of Stories
Volume 1
Pamela Jaye Smith
Monty Hayes McMillan
Published by MYTHWORKS
7231 Franklin Ave. Suite 5
Hollywood, CA 90046 USA
323-874-6042
[email protected]
www.pamelajayesmith.com
www.mythworks.net
www.mythicchallenges.com
www.alphababeacademy.com
Manufactured in the United States of America
Copyright 2013 Pamela Jaye Smith & Monty Hayes McMillan
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
Cover art by Gail Jorden.
DEDICATION
To those gone…
“For some we loved, the loveliest and the best
That from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest,
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to Rest.”
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
And those still here…
“For in and out, above, about, below,
'Tis nothing but a Magic-Shadow show,
Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.”
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To all those writers, composers, poets, and artists in all media, the people whose passions create great art, great experience, and great inspiration.
Thanks to Aunt Betty and Uncle Fred Taylor for that sack of potatoes back when times were tougher than most people knew.
Many thanks to our inquisitive and creative readers and contributors: Dermot Davis, Brian Dyer, Judith Claire, Geffrey von Gerlach, Jill Gurr, Dave Kaplowitz, Reece Michaelson, Aurora Miller, Linda Seger, and Kathie Fong Yoneda.
Special thanks to Gail Jorden for the cover art, and to Tina Lewis for editing.
In 2000 Pamela Jaye first presented "What's Love Got To Do With It?" as one of a series of classes at the Philosophical Research Society in LA. Thanks for insights and information from my two guest speakers at that class, actress and screenwriter Victoria Foyt and filmmaker Lars Ulberg.
Pamela Jaye and Kathie Fong Yoneda co-taught a class at the Great American PitchFest on "What's Love Got To Do With It?" in 2010 which, along with an article they co-wrote for the GAP e-zine, helped inspire our own thinking on some of the various types of love.
Monty thanks – The University of Texas for teaching him to walk again, and for providing him with an education that led to a career in film.
Pamela, for “Seeing a talent I did not know I had”. And to “My brother Jay, who has been very supportive of my career, though it has been the way of our family not to speak of such”.
Special thanks to Mike Taylor and Larry Reibman for making the trip worthwhile.
Pamela thanks – Monty, for “getting me into film school and onto so many fabulous adventures, from the Arctic to the Andes to SE Asia. His unique and learned perspective on film, art, socio-politics, and travel has always made for fascinating conversations and experiences. Monty sees the vision, so often leads the way, and always has my back”.
Special thanks to Rick Gilligan, Michael Wilson, Jim Bogart, Bruce Logan, Michael Ventura, and all the ladies of the Fun Patrol for decades of intriguing discussions about many aspects of Love.
Georgia Lambert, Wisdom Teacher, for lessons in the metaphysical aspects of all sorts of love.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
How to use this book
1. Love of Land and Country
2. Familial Love
3. BFF – Best Friends Forever
4. Warrior Bonding
5. Love for Animals
6. Love of Art
7. Love of Adventure
8. Love of Death & Destruction
9. Interspecies Love
10. Transformative Chivalric Love
Author CVs
INTRODUCTION
SHOW ME THE LOVE! offers content creators of all genres, styles, and media a rich resource, new ideas, and a comprehensive, practical guide to using the dynamic and dramatic power of LOVE in all their stories.
Who is this book for? Novelists, Screenwriters, Playwrights, Directors, Actors, Directors of Photography, Production Designers, Composers, and Sound Designers as well as Development Execs, Producers, Publishers, and Marketers. Identifying, understanding, portraying, and communicating the core of emotion in a story is what entertains, enlightens, and educates your audience.
Understanding the deeper drives that affect how we act, react, and understand will give you better tools with which to create and motivate your characters and stories along their transformational arcs. Readers and viewers of all types of media may also find this information will enhance their understanding and enjoyment.
Our efforts to bring you a practical working knowledge of different types of love is not breaking new ground. We ride on the shoulders of others: Joseph Campbell, Robert Graves, Edith Hamilton, Norma Lorre Goodrich, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and many others. Much of the scientific material is thanks to researchers and reporters: Ethel Spector Person, Daniel G. Amen, Daniel J. Levitin, and publications such as Psychology Today, Science Daily, National Geographic, etc.
Most stories have some aspect of LOVE in them: romantic love, familial love, love of friends, love of self, love of country, love of the divine, love of animals, love of art, love of money, love of power, love of nature, love of death and destruction.
When well-crafted, the LOVE aspect of a story lives on in the hearts and minds of readers and viewers, be it “My old love! I’m paralyzed with happiness!” from The Great Gatsby; “I see you” from Avatar; “We few, we happy few, we Band of Brothers” from Henry V; Casablanca's "We'll always have Paris"; “Greed is good”, from Wall Street; “To boldly go where no one has gone before” from Star Trek; and from Galaxy Quest, the brilliant fun spoof of the Star Trek series, “As long as there is injustice, whenever a Targathian baby cries out, wherever a distress signal sounds among the stars, we'll be there. This fine ship, this fine crew. Never give up...and never surrender”.
Some other languages pay more attention to nuances and have made a fine art of making a distinction between different variances in emotions and experiences. The Greeks have 16 words for various types love: Eros = sexual, Agape = reciprocal love between humans and the divine, Philios = familial, Patrios = love of country, Platonic = love without sex (as opposed to “Friends with Benefits”), etc.
The peoples of the Arctic regions have scores of words for snow and Swahili distinguishes eighteen grammatical genders. The word “love” is the basis for so many varied emotions but in English we only have the one word for all those very different things. Like English, Klingon has only one word for “love” and it is “bang”, which kind of gets the meaning across on a number of levels.
The different types of LOVE can provide you with character and story arcs in any genre and any style, for instance:
LOVE of adventure is the plot driver of Up and Star Trek.
LOVE of or between deities can fuel epic stories such as The Mahabharata, the escapades of the Greco-Roman pantheon, the mythic characters in the Ring Cycle operas and Lord of the Rings.
LOVE of country is often the background for sagas such as Out of Africa, Braveheart, and Avatar.
Family stories often feature LOVE of animals, like Tintin, Old Yeller, War Horse, and Free Willy; as well as LOVE between animals, like The Lion King, Lady and t
he Tramp, Finding Nemo, and Ice Age; or between toys as in the Toy Story trilogy.
Buddy stories center on friendship's loyal LOVE such as Butch and Sundance, Thelma and Louise, and The Hangover.
LOVE of death and destruction motivates the antagonists The Joker in The Dark Knight and the Sith King in Star Wars.
Tragic stories often have twisted LOVE at their core, like Phantom of the Opera, Quills, Eyes Wide Shut, and Deadwood.
When romantic LOVE goes bad, it's all hell to pay, like in The Girl, Fatal Attraction, and War of the Roses.
Forbidden romantic LOVE can be quite tragic, as in Anna Karenina and Brokeback Mountain.
Bumbling romantic LOVE can be adorable and comedic like When Harry Met Sally and The Wedding Crashers.
Lost romantic LOVE offers sweet yearnings like in Ghost, The Notebook, and Titanic.
And there are many other types of LOVE that we will explore in this first book and in the ones to follow.
By knowing more about the psychological background of different types of love, by knowing how it has worked in myth, history, and current events, and by learning ways to express that type of love both in words and in visuals, you can make your stories richer and more memorable.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
SHOW ME THE LOVE! is a guidebook to a many different types of love. It is a reference book for content creators to better craft the emotional situations and plot lines that will make your stories more compelling.
Using new technology doesn’t automatically make you smarter; you still have to put in the brain-work. Conversely, if you don’t have the latest equipment you can still appreciate and enjoy the media that you consume and/or create, on whatever level that may be.
Sometimes your story will present just a simple stroke of a certain type of love and that’s just fine. Other times your story will explore the deeper complexities of your character’s psyche, and having in-depth information will help you create richer backstories and subtext and give you inspiration for thoughts, dialogue, and actions.
We encourage you to write in this book. Add your own examples from movies, TV, books, comics, games, songs, history, current events, and your own life. Recognizing the pattern of a particular type of love will improve your ability to create that pattern in your own works.
Other volumes of the SHOW ME THE LOVE! series will follow, each with a selection of ten different kinds of love, such as Gods and Goddesses in Love, Narcissism, Obsession, Star-Crossed Love, Sex for Sale, Superhero Love, and many more.
*****
Following is the chapter format with a brief explanation of each category.
FORMAT
The Defining Myth
Myths are the stories we tell ourselves to explain, and often justify, the world around us and within us. Being able to draw upon an appropriate myth can greatly enrich your characters and your stories. Since love is the most fascinating emotion most people experience, it is the one most often turned into stories and immortalized in myths.
Examplar Movie
Love is the precept for drama and drama is what motivates a story. “We’ll always have Paris”, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”, “We few, we happy few, we Band of Brothers”, “Ooohhh, that’s not right!” Some movies become iconic because of their use of love: how they reveal it, treat it, and hold it up as an example. The movies we list illustrate various kinds of love and how that type of love can move a story and improve a script. We use movies for examples since they are the most globally known and the easiest to access around the world.
Why this type of love exists – the evolutionary backstory
A lot of contemporary human behaviour is a heritage from our evolutionary past. Anthropologists point out that our hunter-gatherer history is reflected in some current relationships. Males, coming from a hunter background, are more prone to roam about and be always on the alert for new game, and ready to spread their seed to propagate the species. Females, coming from the gatherer background, are more prone to settle down in one spot to nurture the young children and focus their attention on keeping together the new family unit. And so it goes for many other of the drives and emotions that fall under the categories of “Love”, be it love of land, of dieties, of art, animals, etc.
How this type of love works – physiology and psychology
Hormones, chemicals, nerves, and psychological influences drive individuals to specific behaviours.
Testosterone and adrenaline drive young men to risky behaviour and to try to impregnate as many females as possible. Teenage girls are driven by estrogen and oxytocin to pair bond and reproduce. Both give off strong pheromones that can cause Romeo-and-Juliet situations, whether in 14th century Verona Italy or the local high school glee club.
In the category of patriotic love, for instance, young men are easily drafted into wars because they feel they are invincible. Older men with lowered testosterone levels are typically more mellow and more concerned for the group than for their own agendas. Women with higher testosterone levels often become warriors and leaders.
Psychological patterns from childhood can greatly influence a character’s love-map, how they approach love and what they expect from it. Those early patterns can provide compelling scenes when the stress of the story brings on an emotional breakdown followed by a touching revelation of a character’s core wound. ...except for the Joker in Dark Knight, who kept making up sad backstories for his own wickedness and then mocking those taken in by his so-called revelations.
These hormonal and psychological influences can be part of the backstory for your characters, how you define and reveal their nature.
How this type of love serves us now
Some evolutionary aspects still serve us well, such as the subtle signals of pheromones and other signs of physical health being indicators of a compatible immune system and reproductive fitness. Other evolutionary aspects are about gaining and protecting resources, which can explain the deep roots of greed, hoarding, and gossip (a social monitoring and control system for keeping people in line). Artists, rebels, and misfits are seldom bound by any of the ancient social drives and can choose their attractions based on talent, glamour, eccentricity, and the ability to inspire.
The explanation matters because the more you know about how it got to be this way, the richer your characters and story can be.
Examples in Myth and Legend
Some of the greatest stories ever told have been told and retold for aeons. Most of the stories we currently tell each other are just updates and variations of the timeless classics. And that’s okay. Just as children want to hear over and over and over again the same stories, so too do grownups; but we want some novelty tossed in as well.
That’s your job as content creators, to embrace the core principles of a theme, archetype, situation, symbol, etc. but to present it in a new way so that we can learn the lessons anew, enjoy again that thrill of discovery, and be satisfied with how it all turns out.
Examples in History and Current Events
Your story can gain legitimacy and/or immediacy if you have appropriate references to actual past and/or present events. It’s also good research for you to make your story arcs and character arcs more realistic – even in fantasy genres.
Some production companies and networks specifically search for stories that address contemporary issues even if they are period pieces. Because history so often repeats itself, knowing what went before can give you an advantage in crafting your story.
Examples in Media
Watch and read other media dealing with your chosen concept of love to learn what has been done, what works, and what does not. After having done that research, you will be inspired to use the relevant basics and to put your own unique twist on that type of love.
Examples in Music
Music is the first art. Different styles of music affect us in different ways -- martial music, sorrowful music, celebratory music, spiritual music, romantic music, etc.
&n
bsp; Sound deeply affects us both physiologically and psychologically. Though it is not a visual art, for some people who have synasthesia, sound actually creates visuals and emotions in their brains. For the rest of us, it stirs our imaginations. Dvorak’s New World Symphony [No. 9 in E minor] creates the images of a thunderstorm rolling across the countryside.
Some of these examples may give you ideas for your soundtrack, or for references within your novel.
Symbols
In our multicultural, instantaneously inter-connected global village, we speak hundreds of languages and thousands of dialects with diverse and specific cultural backgrounds. How can we communicate effectively across all these borders?
Symbols and images convey emotions, states of mind, and actions frozen in time. Bernini’s exquisite marble statue of Saint Teresa of Avila quivers with the ecstasy of adoration. A flower crushed in bloody battlefield mud captures war’s tragic futility. A raised fist commemorates a revolution, a raised flag a victory, and a bird rising in flight a valiant act or a release to freedom.
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