> At 01:17 16/12/96 -0600, you wrote:
> >On Mon, 16 Dec 1996, Dave Pape wrote:
> >
> >> >I have observed that the most effective science fantasy builds at least 2
> >> >or 3 of the 10 key delusions [the Chosen One Meme is one!], that
> >> >Karl Menninger listed in his book "The Mind", into the plot. Doing this
> >> >explicitly has improved my own fiction.
> >>
> >> What are the others? Don't worry, I don't write sci-fi, your royalties
> >> are safe.
> >
> >Nonexistent royalties need not be protected.
> >
> >I'll find that over winter break [it helps if the book isn't 250 miles away!]
> >
> >One of my longer storylines uses the following concepts on the protagonist:
> > 1) "Messiah complex"
> > 2) "Mysterious Father"
> > 3) "No one understands"
>
> Hey, as an exercise, could you/we/I follow these complexes down to their
> biological roots? Work out why it'd be evolutionarily adaptive to have a
> brain which thought its host was the most important thing in the world?
> (obvious)... Why we should be in awe of dad? (ensures efficient conditioning
> by immediate genetic forebears)... etc?
You'd probably be better at that exercise than I. The results would be
interesting.
[CLIP]