Showing posts with label Soul Mate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Soul Mate. 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, April 23, 2019

Theme-Story Integration Part 3, Sexy Villains by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Story Integration
Part 3
Sexy Villains
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous Parts in Theme-Story Integration: 

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/04/theme-story-integration-part-1-villain.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/04/theme-story-integration-part-2-villain.html

Part 2 ended off:

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

Only in children's stories or "comics" (not graphic novels) do people just suddenly, and without explanation or motivation, change into the opposite of what they've been seen to be in a plot-sequence.

So, bit by slow, detailed, bit at a time, you reveal the inner structure of your world that you built -- and make it clear how your world differs from everyday reality such that this "impossible" thing is possible. 

In our Reality - "As the twig is bent; so grows the tree," is a true statement about human nature. Also the apple doesn't fall far from the tree is true of humans.

What is different about your World that makes those two statements about Human Nature false? 

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

You as the writer, creating this fictional world-structure as science fiction can do what Romance Genre writers can't usually do -- change a parameter of the reader's Reality and induce the reader to suspend disbelief.

Romance genre can do this, somewhat, in the Historical venue, and sometimes in action-stories of adventure into strange and unexplored regions of the world.  For example, Westerns, or stories of Mountain Men fighting their way West across the buffalo herd infested plains to the far mountains where furs can be collected and (if you can get back to a Trading Post) sold for actual cash.

But in Science Fiction Romance, especially Paranormal Romance, you have the added advantage of being able to alter the parameters of "reality" to include your impossible outcomes.

In most readers' view of reality, Souls are either irrelevant or excluded as unnecessary postulants. 

Many readers who live in such reality, suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy a Soul Mates Unite And Live Happily Ever After Because They Are Soul Mates story. 

Soul Mates is the sexiest postulation Romance has come up with in decades.  Happily Ever After, and the over-all theme, Love Conquers All, have always been the core of Romance, but when the strict genre walls started to evaporate, we added the Fantasy postulate of Souls -- first with ghost stories. The TV Series from movie, from book,

THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR is an example.

https://amazon.com/Ghost-Muir-Season-Disc-Lange/dp/B00M8KBGNU/


Then actual physical sex scenes became acceptable in the Romance genre. Physical sex scenes were specifically, totally forbidden in any novel with the Romance genre designation. Any sex happened by implication, between scenes, without being referenced. Then new, young readers growing up with different standards, abandoned the genre until publishing gave in and allowed (gradually, step by slow step) actual sex scenes.

Romance writers working for specific imprints were given (still are) instruction sheets for how many sex scenes there can or must be, and where they can be, and how long they can go on.  Honest - it was a written, express and precise formula.  I had a 4-hour Manhattan lunch with the owner of one such publishing house who was exploring the potential audience for Alien Sex Scenes - having noted we broke that taboo in Star Trek fanfic. 

Science Fiction, viewed as boy-action-adventure literature, had such a "formula" about fight-scenes, combat, and chase scenes, limiting dialogue strictly.  I never was sent such an instruction sheet, but I was taught the structure by editors.

So once it was established (by fanfic) that Human/Alien Sex Scenes could be included in popular Romance novels, it was allowed in Fantasy worlds. Whereupon, the worst of the bad-boy villains, THE VAMPIRE, became fodder for Paranormal Romance.

The Vampire Genre exploded onto the scene in mass market paperback (no, Anita Hill, Vampire Hunter, was not the first, nor was Interview With A Vampire).  Vampire Romance became a fad, rising and falling in a couple of decades. 

Writers hear from editors, "We are overstocked on those novels. Show me something else."  Overstocked means they have bought (maybe not had delivered yet) enough of a certain kind of story to last through the expected declining market demand. 

My Vampire Romance novel, THOSE OF MY BLOOD,
reached the market just as the market peaked. 

  https://amazon.com/Those-My-Blood-Tales-Luren-ebook/dp/B00A7WQUIW/

At one point, the hardcover edition of Those of My Blood sold for over $400 to collectors.  Then came various e-book editions.

After Manhattan publishers refused manuscripts with Vampire Romance stories, slamming their door shut, writers went to the embryonic e-book market.  Many new publishers sprang up, looking for ways to distribute novels without printing them.  The e-book field languished for a long time as hardware makers searched for a way to create readable screens -- and as soon as that became available, the whole e-book field was taken over by Manhattan publishers.  Underneath all this was a long struggle with copyright -- a story for others to cover.

The problem Vampire Romance writers were trying to work out was simple: Vampires (Dracula style) are purest Evil.  How can your reader identify with a woman who can love a Vampire? 

Add science fiction and you have the obvious answer: artificial blood makes killing by sucking the woman's life out of her (Dracula style) not only unnecessary, but un-attractive to a human-turned-vampire-against-his will who still has a Soul. 

Most of our readership may not believe in Souls as a part of everyday reality, but use the word freely to refer to the innate impulse to do good.

We recognize a basic human desire to do Good -- and how it can happen that a human enflamed by emotion can do something very Bad (Road Rage) without becoming a bad person.

In fact, many people don't think a person can be a bad person -- just occasionally do something bad.

After childhood, most people rarely examine the minutia of what constitutes goodness or badness -- what makes a true Villain - a Black Hearted Person.

But writers who want to build world distinctive from our everyday world, where impossible things are possible and even plausible, have to consider what the reader assumes about "good and bad" -- and what about the everyday world would have to change to validate the fictional definition of "good and bad" necessary to tell the writer's story.

That core difference is the THEME.

The theme is the writer's statement about how this fictional reality differs from the reader's.

And in Science Fiction Romance, that fundamental difference is about how Souls mate.

Throughout human history, almost every culture mentioned  in the Golden Bough has defined "good" and "bad" via some paradigm of Soul. 

If you're out of ideas - go read that book.

There are so many theories of Soul and reincarnation, some blending easily into modern American views, and others clashing or challenging the science-based views, that a writer has to be careful not to choose elements at random.

For a reader to be lulled into suspension of disbelief, the writer has to have some underlying structural consistency against which to test every line of dialogue, every scene decorative detail, and every plot development and conflict resolution.

That's what THEME is -- the touchstone against which you test elements, and discard everything that does not bespeak the theme.  Consistency is the essence of good writing.

Different novels in a series can have different themes, in fact use different characters to bespeak different views, but to be a series, there has to be a consistence thematic structure that makes sense. 

So, many writers with a hot romance story to tell will revert to our everyday reality -- a structural matrix both reader and writer are familiar enough with that nothing need be said about the shared unconscious assumptions.  Reality has plenty of conflicts and puzzling inconsistencies - why create something else? 

Science Fiction is about challenging "authority."  It is about "what if this pivotal belief is wrong?"  What if we can go faster than light?  What if humans can 't, but Aliens can?

Science fiction stories are built on some postulate that differentiates the story world from everyday reality. 

What if ...
If only ...
If this goes on ...

Those three, if you can  formulate them all into one story, are the essence of science fiction.  Add two Souls incomplete without the other, overcoming whatever obstacles keep them from uniting, and you have Science Fiction Romance.

The postulate you need to create that story is simply the idea that Souls Are Real.

That is the idea that set off the Vampire Romance explosion using the Gene Roddenberry technique.

To create Star Trek as Wagon Train To The Stars, and make it not a Western set in our everyday reality, but real science fiction, Roddenberry had to postulate a PERSON WITHOUT EMOTIONS (Spock.)  Everything is the same, except one thing. 

To create Vampire Romance, and make it not Horror Genre but Science Fiction, a genuine Alien Romance, we had to postulate A VAMPIRE WITH A SOUL. 

That single change in the DRACULA view of the world, a twist in the good/evil paradigm, opened an entire conversation that lasted at least a generation.

Traditionally, villains have been portrayed as "black souled" or "dark souled." 

The hero, who is a source of good, has been portrayed as "light." 

We enjoy reading the Anita Blake Series

because of the struggle Anita, the necromancer, has falling in love with a Vampire, being sucked into an ever darker world, and rationalizing dark deeds as necessary for survival.  We see her CHANGE her code of ethics, and how that changes her opinion of herself. 

What is "sexy" about her Master of the City Vampire?  He has a "heart."  He can love.  He values loyalty.  Becoming Master of the City to displace a true villain vampire, he is in a complex and changing political/magical position that exactly reflects Anita's position among her ethical dilemmas.

They belong together. It is inevitable (if your world building includes inevitability as a part of your reality.)

The Anita Blake series is an excellent example of Gray-to-Dark story arc.  Anita discovers that her personal code of ethics she prides herself on is actually an anti-life code.  It is not possible to survive in her world (of magic and were-people) by adhering to her code. 

Her code is one based on extreme pride, and total lack of self-awareness, and thus I term it a "gray" code, rather than  an example of "white" or "light."  There are better codes to live by.

We've discussed The Lone Ranger at length: 


https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/12/flintstones-vs-lone-ranger.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/01/theme-archetype-integration-part-3.html

... but we love Anita because she has a Code and she gives up her extreme pride in order to modify her Code to one that can sustain her life and identity (in her world, which is so different from ours, we suspend disbelief.)

Now consider the less popular, more difficult to write, Black-to-White story arc.

A body in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted on by an outside force.

Thus if you take a Black Soul, or a Soul becoming darker,  and turn it to the Light, you need an outside force to change that soul's story-arc direction.

This is the classic "rescue" Romance –– where for the love of a woman, a criminal goes straight. 

Rescue Romance has become a cliche in mundane Romance genre, but there are many new frontiers for the Black-to-White story arc in science fiction, paranormal, and Fantasy Romance.

When one member of the to-be-united couple is defined as not-human, you can vary the trait that is missing, or different, and generate the sexiest villains, bad girls and bad boys who have potential, saving graces, and exceptional effects on their World.

One kind of world that works nicely for Black-to-White Story Arcs, is the occult premise based on the Bible's concept of punishment for defying God's Law is to be "cut off."

Many people puzzle over what "cut off" means and why it would be a bad thing to happen to you.

The explanation that generates the most story directions is very simple. Suppose Souls are like coaxial cables, many threads twisted together to form a rope.  Inside the cable are threads, as in an optical cable, that carry "light" from the Source into the world via the instrument of the human body.

Being "cut off" would be having one or more of those optical fiber threads go dark.

The "light" that comes through those threads into the body-and-mind from the Soul is Holiness, or the light by which humans distinguish good from evil. 

How you define Good, define bad, define Evil, depends on that light shining out of you, into the world around you, illuminating and highlighting color-texture-depth, creating the image of the reality you must live in.

We generally define good as that which promotes life, and bad or evil as that which destroys life. 

So one who is "cut off" lives in darkness and can't distinguish good from bad.  If only a little bit is cut off, maybe colors become shades of gray, maybe texture isn't perceptible, maybe the world becomes dull and uninteresting.

When we depict a Character who is "in love" we often describe how the senses become more prominent.  Food tastes better, jokes are funnier, flowers have distinctive aromas, life comes alive to all the senses.  "Paris in Springtime" is a sensory reference. 

Likewise, being "in love" means shelving conflicts.  Boorish and offensive public behavior (cutting you off in traffic; running red lights and making you slam on the brakes) is shrugged off.  Life is too good to waste time being angry.

Being "in love" means being "connected." 

Falling in love changes the state of being, the criteria of excellence, and the priorities. 

The esoteric explanation of this "in love" connection is that there is an aspect of the Divine Creator of the Universe, the feminine spirit, Shechina, that pours "light" into the connection between the couple.

When a Soul has been "cut off" - and has become a Black Soul, (or maybe just gray) a villain, the experience of Love can reconnect that Soul to the divine, and change everything that person does because Love changes what you are able to "see" with the mind's eye.

Love is not just biological.  It is a phenomenon of the Soul, and the essence of Love is "connection." 

But it's not an either/or -- zero-sum-game -- thing.  You don't either love or not-love.  Like the fiber optic cable, threads can be lit with the fire of love -- while other threads are not lit.  A human is a construct of thousands and thousands of nanometer size threads. 

We don't just love our sex partners.  We love parents, role models, friends, family, co-workers, even acquaintances.  The more different people we love, the more threads light up, the better we can see where we are steering our life-story.

The sexy Villain is the one who "lights up" at contact with the main character and makes plot-action-choices that increase or expand the main character's chance at surviving.

If this seems too abstract an idea to use in crafting fiction, do read SAVE THE CAT!
and play with the advice to open a story on a character acting to "save a cat." 
https://amazon.com/Save-Cat-Last-Screenwriting-Youll-ebook/dp/B00340ESIS/

Read that series of script-writing books, and analyze the movies and TV shows you love most -- seeing how you became entangled in the affairs of a main character you consider a Good Guy (even if he's the villain of the piece.)

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Worldbuilding For Science Fiction Romance Part 3 - Body And Soul

Worldbuilding For Science Fiction Romance
Part 3
Body And Soul 


Previous parts in Worldbuilding for Science Fiction Romance are:

Part 1
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/01/worldbuilding-for-science-fiction.html

Part 2 - Imagine An Impossible World
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/10/worldbuilding-for-science-fiction.html

Now in Part 3, we look at the inhabitants of the built world.

The "world" you build around your Characters arises from your Theme which from the point of view of the Characters is what they refer to as, "The Story Of My Life."  Or, sometimes, "Every Single &%$#@! Time This Happens To Me!"

The point of reading a novel is to explore how to break those "every single time" patterns in your own life.  The power of fiction lies in the ability to convey to the reader a clue, an insight, about how the reader's life works and how the reader can take command of their life and "edit" their fate-destiny-plight-theme to be more amenable.

So you are looking (as you scan the headlines) for a popular theme which recurs because of a misconception you can spot.  Once you fully understand the mechanism driving that misconception, then you can transpose that misconception into a well-built world where you can expose the misconception -- and be very entertaining as you do so.

I say "transpose" because this writer-craft process of crafting themes relevant to you, and to your reader, is just like adapting a musical composition to be played on different instruments and perhaps in a different key.  It's "the same but different" which is what purveyors of fiction look for.

Let's take an example.

In Science Fiction Romance one must blend "science" (the study of physical reality) with "Romance" (the bonding process of the Soul).

In science, there is no such thing as the Soul.

In Romance, no scientific declaration of "impossible" is a barrier to two Soul Mates joining -- Love Conquers All is the master theme.

In Romance, there is such a thing as "science."  But it does not govern the limits of the possible.  In Romance, the Soul governs.

When you join Science (the study of reality) to Fiction, you alter the Science to fit the Story and use that altered Science (what if you can go faster than light?) to drive the Plot (Interstellar Wars).

When you join Romance (the experience of Truth) to Fiction, you alter the actual, real-life experience of people to fit the Story and use that altered version of Romance to drive the Plot (Helen of Troy).

In both cases you have to start with something to say (theme).  That statement you are making has to be a reply to what your target readership is thinking and feeling.

In today's world, young people (teens-20's) have been immersed in a world that makes little distinction between thinking and feeling.  In fact, what people feel is considered a more reliable determinant in all decision making.  Thinking, while admired and even shrouded in the mystique of expertise, is a subordinate ingredient in distinguishing right from wrong, good from bad.

Those are the readers you are talking to, answering the questions they torment themselves over.  Those are the readers you, the writer, are to show a way out of torment, a way to change "the story of my life" -- to edit reality.

One subject the Romance field took up decades ago is the thesis that reshapes all lives and all realities when adopted -- that the sexual impulse, sexual arousal, can be "irresistible."

The feelings, hormones, emotions of the Body pre-empt all thinking.

Many today regard the Body as the thinker, and much Science (grant money) is being channeled into studies of the brain, nerves, genes, cells, ostensibly to create cures or treatments for disease and to extend life-span.

Science is the Body for many people, at least when they are young.

Most young people (teens) do not have much awareness of having a Soul, of being a two-part composition.

So the writer looks for a theory of Body and Soul which is TRUE in the World she is building, and dubious in this real world.  Choose a statement about Body and Soul, and build the entire fictional world around it (usually by starting with a Character.)

There is an occult theory that the Soul is first joined to the Body at conception, but only a tiny bit of contact is made.  As the fetus grows, more Soul pours into the little body.  At Birth, even more of the Soul is inserted into the Body, and then the contact is choked down to a tiny channel. By the teens, the channel has gradually opened to allow more Soul to pour into the Body.  This continues to life's peak, and then the Soul (having learned the lessons it is here to learn) starts to retreat.  With Aging of the Body, the Soul has only to pass on its lesson.  Death is the complete freeing of the Soul from contact with this Body.

By this esoteric theory of Soul, "the story of my life" -- the thematic pattern that repeats every ^%&$#@@@ time -- is the Lesson the Soul is here to learn.

You have to pass age 30 to have lived long enough to identify some of these patterns, and perhaps 50 to see which one is the lesson of this life.

But in the teens, the awareness that there are patterns is what causes the teen-angst we are so familiar with (and scornful of.)

If your life is about your Soul -- and the Body is just a disposable vehicle like a phone or a car -- but you deny the possibility that Soul exists, you are in Conflict.  That is an Internal Conflict.

If you deny that Soul is real, then meet a Soul Mate -- what do you do?

If the Soul "remembers" that every single &^^!@#$ time this new Soul has touched a Life you were living, everything went wrong, then how would the Soul/Body combination of this life react to yet another meeting -- another chance?

Now consider the Soul Mate Couple -- each has lived a series of Lives designed to teach them that the Soul is real, but neither of them has learned that lesson.

Into their Meeting Moment in this life, you put a Character who has complete Soul awareness, and whose body and soul are fully blended and activated.

This third Character would deal with each of them -- and everyone else he/she deals with -- as Souls, with the experience and awareness available only to Souls.

Other Characters in their lives, and the two Mates, would deal with each other as Body alone -- no Soul dimension to be considered.  Body's Lust is irresistible, emotions are truth, humans are primates who talk.  Do what's "natural" to the primate body - it's not healthy to do anything else.

The Other Characters behave that way because they live in the World you have built around them -- they fit their world.

The Third Character does not fit their world.

The Third Character is a source of Conflict, external and internal.

The Third Character is also the resolution of both Conflicts.

The way he/she resolves these Conflicts, leaving both Soul Mate Souls having learned the Lesson of this life, will be the thematic statement you choose.

Many Resolutions of the "I don't believe in Souls" Conflict are possible.  Think about it. The Resolution might be "Souls Are Fiction" or "Souls Might Be Real" or "Some People Don't Have Souls And Are Just Primates That Talk," or "What's That Got To Do With Anything."

Complications and Plot Twists galore open up if you include a pregnancy.

To get more ideas, just go to the Mall and sit, people-watch for a while.  We, in our current world, predicate our speech and deeds on the assumption that other people are just Bodies.  We deal with store clerks, patrollers, wandering advertisers wearing sandwich boards, or handing out flyers, all with Body-to-Body dynamics.

Read The Dresden Files -- and other Fantasy Series -- that include "The Soul Gaze."  When a Mage stares into your eyes, he Sees your Soul.


It is a common Fantasy element because Historically it was deemed a real world possibility.

Think about that.  Do some research. Imagine what a world full of Humans who deal with each other Soul-to-Soul might be like.  What Laws would they make?  What manners would they adopt?  How would they phrase statements and observations -- what would their Headlines say?

Such a world would seem strange, bizarre, uncanny, to your readers, but it might be irresistible.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Theme-Character Integration Part 13 Soul Mate Of The Kickass Heroine

Theme-Character Integration
Part 13
Soul Mate Of The Kickass Heroine
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg


Previous parts of Theme-Character Integration Series are indexed here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/index-to-theme-character-integration.html

We discussed the nature of Theme and how to identify it early in the posts about Theme.

We discussed how to create a theme, how to state a theme in a usable format, and how to integrate theme into all the other basic storytelling skills a professional writer must master.

But we've not yet identified exactly "what" Character is.

We all assume we know what character means -- but writers can't make the assumptions they want to artistically lull a reader into making or the writer will produce fiction that screams amateur at every editor.

You can't write a Romance in any sub-genre without exploring at least 2 Characters to the depths of their Souls.  You can write porn by staying on the surface of Identity, skating quickly around the essential ingredients in a Happily Ever After ending (the HEA).

All you have to do to write steamy-sexy books (not novels, mind you, just a story long enough to bind into a book) is take a male Action Novel, break it into scenes, count the pages in the fight-combat scenes, and replace the fight-combat scenes with sex scenes.  I've read a lot of novels using that ploy.  No Characters Allowed.

You can't have a Relationship-driven plot without a Relationship -- which requires at least two Characters.

Do you know "what" a Character "is?"

You can probably wing it, fake it until you make it, in most Romance fields because the Characters are all human.

But in Alien Romance, one of the main plot driving Characters is not human, and is making decisions based on biology and the culture that biology forces the Character to live.

If you don't know what a human Character is - how can you artificially create an Alien Character, especially one destined to Soul Mate to a human?

You not only need to know what Character is, but what Soul is, and where "Destiny" (karma etc) fit into your THEME.

As discussed in Theme-Plot Integration series...

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/index-to-theme-plot-integration.html

...what happens to change the situation depends entirely on the THEME you are showcasing in this particular volume (which might or might not be part of a Series).

It all starts with THEME -- and theme generates the Characters who will Conflict to generate the Plot.

Some writers start by consciously sketching Character traits -- for others this just kills the need to write the story.  Sometimes the writer just doesn't need to know.

The most famous advice from major Science Fiction writers, such as Robert A. Heinlein, is "Just tell the story."  And, "Just tell a whopping good story."

You don't have to know, consciously, what you are saying.  Twenty years later (other famous writers have revealed) you might discover what you said is not at all what you thought you were saying.

Writing is a dangerous profession, as it can reveal far more of the private you than you want known.

The need to write and make public a particular Story bespeaks your own character (small c, the real-world human you are.)

Readers recognize character within your fictional Characters because, whether they know it consciously or not, readers also have character.

So we all know what character is, and by extension what Character is.  Why discuss it?

We discuss it because fictional Characters are constructed to illustrate your Theme for this volume, this story, this segment of a series.

If you plot to illustrate one theme, but the Characters in the Relationship do not illustrate that same theme, you might sell the novel, but regrets about that will haunt you into changing your byline.

A Work that lives to go through many printings survives because it has an inner, invisible to the naked reader, cohesiveness of Theme-Character.  That integration of theme and Character makes the Characters walk off the page into the reader's dreams because the Characters SAY SOMETHING just by existing.

A Character is an artificial construct that reveals some ineluctible Truth about human nature.

Gene Roddenberry wet the mats to get Spock into Star Trek - he knew he needed an Alien to showcase the abstract element of human nature that would transform a simple Wagon Train (TV Series) replica into real Science Fiction.

Most people think the science fiction in Star Trek is the phasers and transporters.  It isn't.  Those were invented to facilitate story telling in the TV medium.  Hence they plastered on a "shuttlecraft" after several episodes - just whipped it out of nowhere, not from the Series Bible - because they had to move the plot within the minutes between commercials.

The real claim of Star Trek to being Science Fiction is the ongoing discussion of human Nature triggered and illustrated in show-don't-tell by Spock's "the same but different" plot-choices, views, and capabilities.

If you want to write Alien Romance, one of your Characters has to be a "Spock."

If your Alien is a human with funny ears, you will have Wagon Train instead of Star Trek -- you will write a simple Romance not Science Fiction Romance.

Gene Roddenberry created the Spock Character (then folded into the creation another Character, Number One, the female First Officer because Paramount would not allow a woman on the bridge giving men orders).  Number One, the emotionless woman was to be GR's commentator on Emotion, while Spock was simply not human.

Gene Roddenberry often said that Kirk, Spock and McCoy represented the three aspects of himself.  That's why Star Trek is not a "Mary Sue" -- and that is how you keep from writing a "Mary Sue."

To perform this factoring of yourself into fragments, setting them into a Team with Inner Conflicts and tolerance, you factor your own character into Characters.

Characters aren't real people - they are simplified and distilled people, but people none the less.

To simplify and distill real people's character, you have to know (consciously or unconsciously) what you are factoring out of what.

What are you?

Not "who" but "what" are YOU?

The answer to that question is the main tone in your writer's "Voice."  We discussed Voice briefly, here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/source-of-expository-lump-part-2.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/reviews-3-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/06/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-8.html

The Soul Mate is a "mate" -- like left and right hands are opposite but fit together, or mirror images, or plug and socket, or the printer that works with your computer but won't work if you upgrade or change your computer.  COMPATIBLE is not identical.

Your statement that answers the question "what" are you is your major theme, the identification of your Voice (Soprano, baritone, bass?)

Voice Type: Soprano, Range: B3 – G6.
Voice Type: Mezzo-Soprano, Range: G3 – A5.
Voice Type: Contralto, Range: E3 – F5.
Voice Type: Countertenor, Range: G3 – C6.
Voice Type: Tenor, Range: C3 – B4.
Voice Type: Baritone, Range: G2 – G4.
Voice Type: Bass, Range: D2 – E4.
What's My Voice Type? - What Are The Different Singing Voice Types
http://choirly.com/whats-my-voice-type/

Writers' voice comes in similar divisions.

It is a "characteristic" that reveals one component of your character.

Character (real and fictional) is a composite of many things.  Theme is a lens through which you run Character to select out the specific attributes that the story will reveal and explain.  Or you can do it by selecting a Character and looking at the life-arc of that Character to find the spot where the Character's Theme first surfaces as a Lesson.

Character, as the old saying goes, is built by adversity.

Novels are about adversity overcome and put behind -- so the Characters sail on into an HEA.

Like voices, writers have a "range" of themes to talk about, and there are themes they can't talk about, as there are songs certain singers can't sing.

Finding your Voice is not just finding your theme - but finding what you can say about that topic, about the nature of the reality your reader lives in.

"What are you?" can not be answered by, "I am a writer."

In this search for the Soul Mate of the Kickass Heroine we are looking for how to create a Theme that generates a Character and then split and/or recombine the components of that Character into people who can benefit from living a particular Plot (Kickass Heroine Finds Her Soul Mate).

The range of themes that fit (artistically) within the Kickass Heroine Finds Her Soul Mate plot-arc is virtually unlimited, so you have only to sing the song in your voice range to make it originally, specific, and memorable.

Writing is a Performing Art, so you must

"What" are you is defined by how (in what pattern, at what Voice Range) the components of your character are connected.

Character is defined by the connections between components, much more than the nature of the components themselves.  All humans have the same inner components -- but those components come in varying sizes, shapes, prominence, and versatility of connectivity.

So let's take a Theme and find an answer to "What Are You?" that creates a Soul Mate suitable for a Kickass Heroine.

THEME: character is measured by the connection between Soul and Body.  Strong Characters have the Soul fully occupying and in charge of the Body.

PLOT: The Soul Makes Friends With The Body, resolving Inner Conflict so HEA is inevitable.

This THEME-PLOT combination makes a lot of assumptions about the nature of Reality that readers don't normally make, therefore it is serious fodder for Science type Fiction.

As we noted in a previous entry some years ago, scientific studies show that when a female overpowers or conquers or wins against a male, the male's testosterone (aggression driver) level goes down.

Here are 3 discussions of testosterone:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/depiction-part-19-depicting-married.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/depiction-part-21-depicting-alien.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/09/depiction-part-32-depicting-brain-to.html

Pay special attention to Part 19 of the Depiction series - Depicting the Married Hunk With Children (that is the HEA personified.)

As in most cases in reality, where a little is good, a lot is not better.  We need our men to be aggressive enough to protect our children, but not so aggressive they take out drunken anger on us.

"Mating" in physical terms means that the constant and continuous presence of the female (sex several times a week with the SAME female) keeps the male at a comfortable and functional level of aggressiveness.  He feels good, and she benefits from having a guy around the house.

"Mating" in spiritual terms means that the two souls become one -- or theme might be that Souls come in halves, and don't work well singularly.  Like the magnetic monopole - or maybe an axel with only one wheel - a person who is single is going to be hampered in some way.

"Marriage" is the process of bringing that Soul-Merging process to the physical level.

Thinking in terms of "Voice" again, consider a male and a female voice merging in a duet.  The resulting sound as they hit notes in a chord may originate in two different sets of vocal chords, but the SOUND that impresses on the recording medium will not be that easily factored back to individual sounds.  They merge into one (assuming both are on key).

In the Real World, we seldom see marriages this perfect.  Most couples hit it on a few subjects and just bicker about the other subjects.

The rarity of harmony makes this image of a functioning marriage and how to achieve it a marketable story.

But to sell that story, you need a theory of "what" a human is, and then a theory of how that physical balance between dominant female and submissive male might work.  You don't want the male's testosterone to go too low - but must not let it run amok, either.

Rip an idea from the headlines.  Earlier this year, the media jumped on President Trump for calling immigrants "animals."  Then it turned out the media had artfully altered the sound byte clip -- he really did say they are animals, but the "they" referred to was not immigrants.  He referred specifically to MS13 Gang Members -- because that particular international gang of drug smugglers are famous for ugly murders, dismembering humans while alive, and a long list of atrocities they brag about and are proud of.

The quote referred to all MS13 Gang Members -- but was specifically about the atrocities not a political affiliation or the misdemeanor of crossing a border without permission.  Not all the Gang members are involved in the atrocity business.  And many have been recruited from locals who are not immigrants at all.

The general, common American reaction to calling any humans "animals" is a savage rejection of the person doing the labeling.  Objectifying other humans is the first step in exterminating them.  In WWII, US solders -- ordinary folks, not professional warriors, but accountants and roofers and train conductors, had to call their enemy some derogatory name to survive spiritually.  Normal people don't kill other people.

To kill, ordinary humans must de-classify a person into a thing.  Otherwise, they would stay their hand from the blow.  Just can't do it.

Knowing that, the American public rose up against President Trump when they thought he was calling all immigrants animals, and were still revolted when the correction filtered out.  Most people never heard the correction.

But just think back on those weeks of uproar over "They are just animals."

It bespeaks a THEME: "What" you are (human or animal) depends on your behavior.

THEME: it is possible for a human to revert to a feral form, becoming just an animal.

Is that something the human IS -- an animal -- or a temporary condition he might fall into?

Is humanity determined by the physical primate body?  Or is it an attribute solely of Soul?  Or is it the nature of the connection, contact, signal-strength, between body and soul?

THEME: A human that has become an animal has lost contact with his Soul.

If Character is the connectivity between Soul and Body, then a human with almost no contact with their Soul can be viewed as an animal without objectifying for the purpose of exterminating without guilt.

A human capable of committing such atrocities (you can Google up a list if imagination fails), is functioning purely as a primate animal.  Without the firm grip of the Soul on the basic primate body, a human being will behave as any other primate would.

Study Chimps.  And other primates.  Males have been known to eat their female's newborn babies.

What prevents humans from doing that?  Nothing.  But we don't.  Why?  Soul.

That is a theme -- human self-control or values are a product of the welding of Soul to Body.  Left to itself, the body will behave like any other animal.

Body and Soul are two separate things, but exist in this reality as a fully merged whole.

Or maybe you can Build your World such that all humans have a degree of connection (a degree of character) between body and soul.  Maybe in some future that connectivity may become measurable, or maybe a chip-implant will "correct" miscommunications between body and soul.

Maybe Aliens will come along who have a system or method of "developing character" or repairing the connection between body and soul.  Maybe that's the secret to beating death?

Death has been defined as the Soul leaving the Body.  What if that were not possible? Zombies? Vampires?

But among your readers, you will have people with varying Soul-Body Connections, some Souls not being compatible with the Body (as some printers are not compatible with your computer).  Or if compatible, maybe they need an adaptor to plug in.

If it is true that being whipped and bested by a female reduces a male's testosterone level, the kickass heroine is out of luck.  No man will mate with her, and if she conquers one, the husband he turns into won't be the kickass hero she so yearns for.

So what mechanism (again this is Theme-Worldbuilding practice) ...

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

... could regulate male testosterone levels in a home where the Kickass Heroine commands all.  That's what "kickass" means -- can not be dominated and therefore is always in command.

"Regulate" does not mean "suppress" or "eliminate."  It means add or subtract as the situation requires.

Perhaps the secret is that the Kickass Heroine's mate has to have a free-flowing, wide-open connection to his Soul, so that the Heroine's mate does not over-react to his inability to dominate her.

Maybe the Relationship settles down to him not feeling any testosterone driven urge to dominate?  Maybe she, likewise, doesn't need to dominate him, or kick his ass.

How could that situation possibly be, or possibly lead to an enduring HEA?

Perhaps each of the two individuals (might be human female and Alien male) has a maximized Soul-Body connection, attuned and optimized.

If humans can revert to feral-animal style living -- earn the appellation "animal" from other humans -- by a lack of Soul-Body integration, then it follows that a very non-animal behavior will be evident in people with a strong, wide-open, freely flowing, wide-bandwidth connection between Soul and Body.

After the tussle of Soul vs Body, if theSoul wins the Body's loyalty and friendship, the person's behavior won't ever revert to "animal" level.

So if the kickass heroine has kicked enough ass to meet her own soul and embrace it, become a whole, integrated person, with very stable emotional responses, sensitive but indomitable, her Mate will recognize that she does not have to be dominated in order to behave well.

She will recognize that this matured kickass hero has full integrated with his Soul, and does not need his ass kicked.  His behavior will not revert to animal level.

At that point, both these individuals will have evolved to reach a level they are Relating Soul-to-Soul, not body to body, not animal to animal.

When the Souls are married, they create a Unity that functions smoothly in the world -- and the world does not respond to their actions in the same way it responds to animals.

They are not animals.  They have become Soul Mates.

At first, they are both answering "What Are You?" with a profession or species, or perhaps social station in life.  At the end, they are both answering, "A Body hosting a Soul."  "I'm a person."

How they get there is the Story all Romance readers yearn for.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

Astrology Just For Writers, Part 12 - Virgo, 6th House and Soul Mates by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Astrology Just For Writers
Part 12
Virgo, 6th House and Soul Mates
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Often the best reason to go to a religious service is the jokes told by the Priest, Reverend or Rabbi.

These are usually very old jokes, and I do ever so much relish old jokes as plot-material for stories, just as cliche and misnomer supply reams of raw material for story tellers.  There's a reason old jokes survive generation to generation and get laughs from those who are too young to have heard them before -- and that reason is worth deep study if you plan a career in fiction writing.  It is most easily revealed by a study of Astrology -- not to "foretell" the future, but to understand Character Arc.  So this series of posts is Astrology Just For Writers.

The index to previous posts on Astrology is here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

The Alien Romance subject we need to look at here, and will later examine in the series of posts on, perhaps, Theme-Character Integration, is, "What exactly IS a human?"  Until we can answer that, we can't "create" the Alien who can fall in love with our Human Character.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/index-to-theme-character-integration.html
What Is A Human Being? is a huge topic, much bigger than me, for sure.

But what brought it into focus for me is a joke, which is not surprising because the entire purpose of Comedy is to reveal that which is too big to see.  If you want to understand Comedy, study the Mary Tyler Moore show.
http://www.amazon.com/Mary-Tyler-Moore-Show-Complete/dp/B00005JLIC

The particular joke that caught my attention, that I just can't get out of my head, was told by a Rabbi at Yom Kippur Services -- how incongruous!  But it worked to open an entire issue Romance Writers must pay attention to, especially when trying to depict an Alien-Human Soul-Mate pair, a very complex Relationship.  If it is a Romance, the Relationship must drive the Plot, and that means the writer must know much more about the structure of Human Nature than the reader is likely to know, as well as how and why Characters "arc" -- and how to depict a Character Arc.  The core of Depicting (show don't tell) is Theme.

Here is a post laying out the basics of Theme and story structure:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-use-theme-in-writing-romance.html

Here is my earliest post on Soul Mates.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/03/soul-mate-characters-heroic-villainous.html

We've been discussing Soul and Soul-Mate in the context of Romance Craft and how the Romance genre is a natural fit into the Science Fiction Genre for a long time.  We've even touched on Comedy, but not on how to use it to reveal an esoteric thematic point in show-don't-tell.  That's what this joke does -- expresses a huge abstract notion of the nature of humanity in show-don't-tell.

Here's the essence of the joke, which I can't repeat exactly because I'm not good at comedy:

God was challenged by a Mortal who didn't believe in Him.  The Mortal says he can make humans, too, just as God does.

So God accepts the challenge and they repair to an open field to compete.  God reaches down and picks up a handful of dirt, and Creates it into a Human.  The Mortal then reaches down and picks up a handful of dirt and begins to create a human, but God says, "Wait!  You can't use THAT dirt -- I Created that dirt."

If the Mortal uses material that God created, then the Mortal isn't Creating a Human "just as God does."  He's using the material God Created.  His work is derivative, not original, therefore the entity he creates isn't "Human" in the sense that the Humans God Creates are Human.

This joke begs the question, "What is a human being?"

To define "Human" we generally reference Genesis, where God Creates Adam -- or more precisely Adam Kadmon (the first Man).

Adam Kadmon is not a "man" at all, but a genderless, or composit, template with both male and female nascent within.

Then God separates the female, leaving a "man" who is no longer the First Human.

The premise of my Sime~Gen Series is that the Sime~Gen Mutation is of the same order of basic Creation as that separation into male and female, so you have male and female Simes and male and female Gens -- whereupon family relationships become extremely complex, and Romance takes on a whole new meaning.  Playing with Worldbuilding at that original level of Creation makes a writer research and ponder the very essential nature of humanity, so I've spent decades burrowing into Tarot and Astrology, as well as Kabbalah, and every other religion.

Free on Kindle Unlimited, or $3.25 on Kindle


This post on the Astrology of the 6th House is to mull over an observation about the meaning of the 6th House as it pertains to the phenomenon of Soul Mate.  The plot-driver of the Sime~Gen Series is all about Karma and Soul Mates.

By the time you read this, the audible.com audiobook edition of the Sime~Gen novel, Mahogany Trinrose, one of the more esoteric-based novels revealing a lot of the hidden ESP functions pivotal to the series, on amazon.

Mahogany Trinrose Kindle and Trade Paperback

http://www.amazon.com/Mahogany-Trinrose-Sime~Gen-Book-Four/dp/1434412083

As always when studying the "Houses" of Astrology, focus on the "Natural" Houses -- with Aries as the 1st House and Pisces as the 12th.

In this case we are studying the Soul Mate properties of the 6th House.

Because the Astrological zodiac is depicted as circular, divided into 12 "Houses" -- and 12 "Signs" -- which exactly coincide in the Natural position (with 0 degress Aries Rising -- or "on the Eastern Horizon" --) therefore the 6th House is opposite the 12th.



This is an obvious fact, one that is just so blatantly "in your face" that you don't see it.

But the astrological wheel graphically represents something that is equally obvious in the most ordinary glyph used to represent the Kabbalistic Tree Of Life.

 

That "something" is "opposites."  The very nature of opposites, the fundamental concept of "opposition" is so pervasive in our lives that we don't notice it even when we're talking about it.

Both the astrological chart and the Tree of Life smack us between the eyes so hard with this obvious fact that we just don't notice it.  It's too big.  The fact is too stunning to comprehend.

That fact is: opposites exist.

Matter exists.  So does "anti-matter."  The entire universe is constructed symmetrically -- so why wouldn't you think a Human  Being is not symmetric?  We are symmetric on the outside, sort of -- most people a just a bit asymmetric, which lends them "character."  If we are symmetric on the outside, why wouldn't we be symmetric on the inside, composed of Opposites?

It is so simple, so obvious, we just don't incorporate it into our thinking when we plot a Romance Novel.  We think male-female, and that's the only pair of opposites.  But look at the astrological chart, and look at the Tree of Life -- more than one pair of opposites make up the total pattern.

"Opposites Attract" -- yeah, we all know that and use it when creating a "pair" who will fall madly in love at first sight.

What is it about opposites -- and what has that to do with human nature as depicted in the Rabbi's joke?

The punch-line of that joke, which I can't replicate, is where God says "You can't use my dirt and say you are Creating as I Create."  You have to Create your own dirt, then make a Human.  Maybe you can Create humans -- but can you Create dirt?  Clay?  A specific type of dirt that can be molded into a human?

We, (most Human cultures) assume that the Spiritual is OPPOSITE the Material.

We assume Soul is different from, perhaps incompatible with, Body.

We assume Soul and Body are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.

We assume that Soul-Mate and Lust-for-Monkey-Sex are two different things.

We assume that one or the other must DOMINATE.

The proposition to mull over, in order to understand what the 6th House, Virgo, (the accountant, Ruled by Mercury) is that the target state is BALANCE.

Here is a thumbnail sketch of the "meaning" of the Houses given to beginners in Astrology -- misleading in many ways, but a starting point.  It "depicts" the Relationship of Opposites.

Ponder the concept of a dynamic equilibrium, a balance of balances where everything swings, and moves, dances, but stays in a dynamic tension with Pure Energy (what I've termed in previous posts here as Godshine) flowing from one state to the other and back again.  A circuit in perfect BALANCE.

All the assumptions about dividing the world into two-things and then fighting until one or the other dominates, are rooted in our modern culture's origin in the Hellenistic, or Ancient Greek culture that produced Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, et. al.

Fighting to Dominate is what the entire pantheon of Greek gods did, and the impetus to fight and to bully Humans, to rape Humans to create Heroes, came from the explicitly described dysfunctional (insane) family relationships among the gods.  It's all there in the mythology.

As a result of what we've inherited from the Helenistic Cultures, we live in a zero-sum-game culture, modeled and transmitted by Football, and other sports where you keep score to determine a winner, convincing all children that this is Reality.

This non-verbal absorption of a conviction makes any other concept of Reality "unthinkable" -- just literally unthinkable.  Our language contains no words for what the horoscope wheel and the Tree of Life depict, so we can't think these thoughts.

The science fiction romance writer must think such thoughts -- then find words to convey the illusion of understanding the alien.

So let's look deeper into the unthinkable alien.

To determine a winner, there must be a loser.

Winner and Loser are considered "opposites."  But are they?

Winner and Loser come in PAIRS - pairs of opposites - incompatible opposites where one must dominate the other. If one wins the trophy, the other can't have that trophy -- the trophy doesn't suddenly become two-trophies.  What kind of a "marriage" is that?  Where's the Romance in "I get and you don't."  Is winner/loser the correct paradigm to describe the reality of Romance?

Is the immersion of our culture in "Sports" the reason many readers won't touch Romance because the underlying concept of the Happily Ever After ending seems "unrealistic?"

In a true Happily Ever After ending, you can not have one of the couple dominating the other -- because the misery of the one dominated will eventually lead to rebellion.  The Sport paradigm disallows any kind of resolution where one does not dominate the other.

Is Reality Created in incompatible pairs of opposites?  Or is there another Relationship that explains how Reality really works?  This is the subject of The Not So Minor Arcana.  Here we're looking at that subject via Astrology.

Giving every kid a 'certificate' for showing up is not the same as preventing them from internalizing the dominance-based model of the universe, as it differs from the balance-based model of the universe depicted in the Zodiac and the Tree of Life.

The Zodiac was familiar to the Helenistic culture, but the Tree of Life was not common to Aristotelian thinking.

We artificially divide humans into Soul and Body to force the concept "Human" into that Aristotelian either/or model of reality.

The misconception is that Reality is "either/or" based (all computers today are either/or based).

The Bible, however, is entirely rooted in a totally different (opposite, and not incompatible) model of reality.

The Bible starts with that Creation story which culminates in the Creation of Male and Female -- in the Divine image.

Perhaps the concept "Human" as depicted in the Bible actually explains to us what we will encounter when we get out into Space and find Intelligent Life on other planets -- or perhaps we may find already space-faring civilizations.

So lets think about the concept Human in terms of the 6th House.

The salient clue is that the 6th House is the opposite of the 12th House.

6th House is labeled, in this diagram, Service and Health -- but it represents your job, what you do to make money, and the manner in which you do it.  6th House is Virgo ruled by Mercury.

The 12th House is commonly labeled "self-undoing" -- the syndrome where you are your own worst enemy, hoist on your own petard, "busted."  But that's only one possible manifestation.  The 12th House is Pisces, ruled by Neptune.

Neptune ordinarily manifests as "dissolution" or "confusion" -- but one common manifestation is Romance.  12th House, Pisces, Neptune, all together define Romance, and the Soul Mate experience.
The 12th House represents the summation of Life, the synthesis of all the other variables in the Natal Chart, everything so deeply merged and mingled that Neptune has the reputation of being 'confusing' or 'dissolving reality' -- Neptune transits are called 'disorienting.'

Pisces/Neptune/12th House synthesizes everything into one thing, dissolving the borders between different things, for example Husband and Wife becoming One.  Marriage is the perfect symbol of 12th House.  Truly, to be "married" means you must "undo" yourself to incorporate the Other within your notion of Self.

Why is Neptune 'disorienting?'

Because, given our Hellenistic heritage, we 'orient' ourselves in Material Reality by separating off the Spiritual and isolating it as if it were something "other" than Material.

The joke the Rabbi told SHOWS without TELLING that Spiritual and Material are not, in fact, two DIFFERENT things.

Spiritual and Material appear to be incompatible opposites -- just like the nitty-gritty, separate detail orientation of Virgo/Mercury is conceptualized in our culture as "opposite" Pisces/Neptune and its Inclusive Big Picture, everything smearing into one idealistic cloud, portrait of Reality.  Neptune obscures details while Mercury separates them and gives them sparkling-hard-edges.

As you read on here below, always keep in mind that Neptune, the Ruler of the 12th House, is the single most definitive significator of Romance in general, and the Soul Mate (and Happily Ever After ending) in particular.  NEPTUNE is the ruling planet of this blog.  It's all about Romance stories.

Astrologically, Virgo, ruled by Mercury, is the 6th House which represents both what you do to earn a living (your job as distinct from your Career) and your Health.

The connection between satisfaction and success at 'Work' (your job, what you get paid money for) and your Physical Body Health is famous in Astrological interpretations of the 6th House.

Beginners in Astrology puzzle and anguish over finding an interpretation for a 6th House transit.

Seasoned professional astrologers will nail one or the other manifestion, in body or health, with fair accuracy, mostly by ignoring the problem of what the connection is between Bodily Health and Job Performance.  Modern science has pretty much "explained" that to the satisfaction of most people.

This Rabbi's joke tells us explicitly that this designation of 6th House as "Body Health" OR "Job Issues" is nonsense.

This Rabbi's joke tells us exactly how these two apparently unconnected things -- Body and Job -- are actually the self-same-identical thing.

But that connection is apparent only through the Tree of Life view of Reality -- the Biblical Description of the nature of reality as a balance, or dynamic equilibrium.

How the Tree of Life view, the graphic representation of the Biblical view of Creation, tells us the relationship between Body and Job becomes apparent only if you understand that the 12th House (Romance) is the connection between Body and Job.

Get that connection into your head, and your Romance plots will never get stale or repetitive, or derivative.

The connection between Romance, Body and Job is the answer to the question, "What is a Human Being?"  

The assumption you make about the Nature of the Human Being generates all the Themes you use in worldbuilding.

Here is the index to the advanced craft posts on integration of theme, plot, character and worldbuilding.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/index-to-theme-plot-character.html
You can use the Helenistic definition of Human, the Roman Definition, or the Japanese, Chinese, Hindu, Native American, or many other definitions to generate dynamite Romance plots.  You can adapt any of them to produce a Happily Ever After scenario if you study and internalize the mythologies of these civilizations.  But there will always be readers who just won't accept that the HEA is possible in real life.

If you do study all these civilizations, and then study the Biblical view of the universe, you will find bits and pieces, a fragment here a shard over there -- traces of the Biblical view in each of these civilizations' mythologies.

The Talmud has it that God offered the Torah to all of the Nations of Earth before he got to Abraham. Each of the Nations asked some questions (typical of their cultures) before answering whether they would accept the Torah, so God just kept on searching.  When he offered the deal to Abraham (then Abram), he just accepted the deal without question, packed up and went to follow God's ways, and then asked what those ways were.

This story explains why you find bits and pieces of Torah everywhere -- everyone got something for considering the offer.  It also illustrates the difference between the culture that accepted Torah, the Biblical View of Reality, and those that regarded that view with suspicion.  The descendants of Abraham are an oddity among humans.

But the Torah also states, boldly and loudly, that eventually all the Nations will "bow down" to God, understand that Biblical View of Reality and rejoice in that understanding.  Nobody loses.  Everybody wins.  Reality is not structured as "either/or" or "I win means you lose."  In the Biblical view of reality, "I win means everyone wins."

That is what is so odd, yet not incompatible, between the general culture's view of reality and the Biblical view of Reality.  When you get a more global grasp of the Biblical View from the perspective of Torah, Tanach, Talmud, Mishnah and Gemmara, you will find that it differs markedly, stubbornly, and emphatically from all the other mythologies.  It is "alien" to every other culture on this Earth, yet is reflected in those cultures, and even the basis of those cultures.

One core issue that distinguishes the Biblical View, yet appears in so many other cultures, is the matter of Body and Soul.

Some cultures say the Body must dominate: "If it feels good, it is good."

Some cultures say the Soul must dominate: "Pleasure is Evil."

Our culture currently is resoundingly rejecting Pleasure Is Evil as a theme -- and going with Pleasure Is The Ultimate Good.  In Romance novels, the first order of business is monkey-sex, then comes Relationship.  Sexual attraction (Body) is considered "irresistible."  Body needs, physical desire, must always dominate any value the Mind (Soul) holds dear.  There's no point resisting the Body because it Dominates the Soul.  That's a thematic premise pervading the Romance field today.

That is, Pleasure (especially sexual pleasure) is the prime indicator by which we distinguish a Soul Mate from the background population.  You have to try out a guy in bed before you marry him, or you'll make a big mistake.  And the guy must be "handsome" -- or the gal "beautiful."  The Body counts more than the Soul.

In other words, the modern USA  culture is working this problem of "What is a human being?" by using the assumption that EITHER the Body OR the Soul must dominate.

Dominance is the only possible way to resolve a conflict, and opposites are always in conflict.  That is a Theme.  You see it working out in International Affairs -- as well as the current Presidential Election cycle.

In other words, in our modern cultural assumptions, Balance is not an Option, unless it is a static balance and tilted to one side or the other.

There is no way to synthesize opposites into a unified whole.

Why do Romance writers and especially science fiction romance writers who deal in the Paranormal (Neptune rules the Paranormal) Romance field need a model of "Human" at all?  Why not just go with your readership's prevailing idea of what a Human is?

Well, if you just accept the prevailing assumption about the nature of Humanity, you will create a lot of read-and-toss, Airplane Read, Beach Read novels, all identical.

What distinguishes one novel from another is theme, and what distinguishes one theme from another is the distinctiveness of that theme.

In Alien Romance, if your Alien character is Human-with-pasted-on-quirks, you won't create a book or series that will be remembered and passed on to children and grandchildren as a "must-read."

The must-read classics are all novels with themes that challenge the unconscious assumptions about Reality, on such a deep subconscious level that the reader is not aware of having their notions challenged.

It's what screenwriting books like SAVE THE CAT! call "off the nose" writing.  You don't call a spade, a spade.  You don't name it on the nose.  You don't hit the nail on the head.  You come at the assumption at an oblique angle and strike a spark that lights tinder in the Soul of the reader.

To do that, you as a writer, need a number of significantly different notions of "what" a human being is.

Your human protagonist has to be able to recognize something "human" in your alien protagonist (preferably that no other human is seeing).

Your alien protagonist has to be able to see something alien in your human protagonist (preferably that no other alien is seeing.)

To pull that off, you have to understand how your target reader understands what a human being is, and you have to have a complete grasp of what other views of humanity can be understood by your reader if you can show them without telling.

As noted above, all cultures have some bit or piece of the Kabbalistic view of the human being. Astrology spans all cultural barriers and depicts mathematically and graphically what we all sense about ourselves, and how we "read" others.

Any reader looking for a Soul Mate novel with an HEA ending will be able to stipulate the existence of the Soul.

Most, however, will not be consciously aware that the resolution of the Body/Soul conflict in our culture is depicted as show-don't-tell in the work/health connection, the 6th House.

I'll give you one example of how this theory can explain the work/health connection, and from that you should be able to create new variations that could form a template for a comprehensible yet alien Alien protagonis.

Here is one way to understand the 6th House, Body/Work connection.

Here are two previous posts discussing the Soul-Time Hypothesis relevant to this quesiton about the meaning of the 6th House.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/01/cycles-and-seasons-margaret-carter.html

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

Here's the theory of what a human is that can generate infinite numbers of sexy alien protagonists.

Think back to that joke at the top of this post.

The nature of anything lies in its initial moments.  That's why Astrological Natal Charts of both human births and the "birth" of an Event -- the moment something happens -- hold usable meaning.

The starting point of a novel determines it's ending point, just as the start determines its middle.  Get those 3 points wrong, and the novel not only won't sell to a big publishing house, but it will be panned by comments on Amazon if you self-publish it.

The starting point determines the middle and end.

Or the middle determines the start and end.

Or the end determines the start and middle.

Unlike Euclidean (another Helenistic Greek) Geometry where it takes 3 points to determine a line, or a triangle, "life" only needs one point.

Or at least, that's the Kabbalistic (Tarot) theory.

In other words, in the Biblical View Of The Universe, there is no such thing as "random" -- but it's not "deterministic" either.  Determinism is one of the precepts of all the Ancient Greek plays that were updated by the Romans and copied by Shakespeare.

We live inside a pattern, but we have Free Will.

So any given starting point for a Life contains the potential for all sorts of middle and end points.

Free Will choice determines which of all the possible middle and end points will gain potential energy.  Which of those high-potential-energy points will be actualized is negotiated with God (who is not a Bully like the Greek gods; he doesn't dictate, He negotiates personally, individually.)

That's where the immense variety of human endeavor comes from.  We all contain Infinity because we were Created by the Infinite -- we are (like the Tardis) bigger inside than outside.

Here is a theory of what a child is that can be crafted into a Theme.

A child is born with specifically delineated Potential.  The child has a Soul from conception, but that Soul is enormously complex and thus doesn't all "fit" inside the baby.  The Soul has to "descend" as it prompts the baby's growth.

We say (also a thematic point) that when the Soul leaves the Body, the human dies.

But that idea is based on the either/or structure of reality.  Perhaps the Soul isn't either-present-or-absent.  Perhaps it is a gradual, step-wise, ever increasing habitation of the Body?

Kabbalah delineates Levels to the Soul - just like Atoms were first thought (by the Helenistic Greeks) to be the smallest indivisible particle of matter, but later were discovered to be composed of electrons and a nucleus, and all of those particles are composed of other sub-atomic particles, each with its own Character.

Likewise, the Biblical View of the Universe, gives us a vision of the human Soul as being composed of Levels, all very intricate and complex.

A baby has a Soul connected, but not fully descended.  At various ages, on the birthday (by the Hebrew calendar) the Soul descends a little more.

This explains how and why children at different ages have increasing capacity for self-control, self-discipline, comprehension of the abstract, etc.  The stages of human development show us what to teach at different ages.

Children learn by doing.  Thus, at each age, additional activities are added to the daily regimen, and additional responsibilities are added until at age 12 or 13 the child is fully responsible for the consequences of her/his actions.

Real learning is always non-verbal.  The deeds carve and shape our view of the universe.

With deeds, we learn the words that correspond to those deeds. Charity.  Justice.  Compassion.

None of those words means anything without the previous practice of the deed: "Don't hit your little sister!"  "Johnny, you must share that toy even though it is yours."

So as a child becomes an Adult (sexual maturity is a big part of that), the Soul descends and gains a firmer grip on the Body.

Throughout the rest of the life, there are milestone birthdays (70 and 80, 90 and 100, being major significators) that delineate a firmer and then weakening grip of the Soul on the Body.

For most of the productive (working at a 6th House job) life, the Soul fits into the Body like a hand fits into a glove.

The Soul wears the Body, and like the hand wearing a glove, stretches and shapes the Body into a replica (an opposite, like a plaster cast you pour molten metal into to make a 3-D object) of the Soul.

We now know that you can have many genes that are not "turned on" or "expressed" -- and that the experiences of Life can switch genes on or off.  You are not your genes.  You are not pre-destined (a Helenistic concept incompatible with the Biblical View of the Universe) by your genes.

You are what your Soul can make of you.  That can be infinite possibilities in infinite combinations.

Or maybe you are what "you" make of your Soul.

In the Helenistic view of the universe, the question would be, "Well, WHICH is it -- the Soul that makes the Body or the Body that makes the Soul?"

In the Biblical view of the universe, that question is utter nonsense.

See how you can use various views of the universe in various human cultures to depict truly Alien aliens who can be Soul Mates to a human?

An Alien who has never heard of the either/or zero-sum-game view of the universe would be sorely puzzled by the very question "which is it?"  The question itself is nonsense.

In the Biblical view of the universe, Body and Soul are really the same thing (Neptune synthesizes).

Remember the Rabbi-joke?  "You can't use that dirt.  You have to Create your human from scratch as I did."

That's MY dirt.  I created that dirt.

What dirt is that?  It's the "dirt" or "clay" from which our bodies are "molded."

Just as that clay was Created specifically to be the body of a particular individual human, so too was the Soul that will wear that Body Created.  They are a pair, synthesized, made one, Neptune style.

We know, today, that our Body is a few pounds of carbon, minerals, etc. (dirt) and a whole lot of Water.

We don't know yet what our Soul is, or is made of, other than it is the breath God blew into Adam's nostrils.

In a previous post, I pointed out the Soul-Time-Hypothesis that I think explains a lot about why "science" can't peg the Soul and prove it exists.

Theory: the Soul enters manifestation through the dimension of Time.

The Soul has no material dimensions -- no height, width, breadth, mass, weight, not even "energy" as in electrons or magnetic fields.  That's why modern science can't even find it, nevermind measure it -- all our instruments are made of matter.

The Soul doesn't inhabit the Body or Possess the Body.

The Soul is not the Body, but it is not an "either/or" relationship.

The Body and the Soul are both created by God, designed for each other, just like in the joke.  "That's My dirt!  Make your own."

Now, back to the 6th House.

Theory: suppose the Soul is given a free will choice before conception.

Astrology assigns the meaning of the MC, the 10th House Cusp, to the Purpose of this Life.  Natural 10th House is Capricorn, the Manager, and is ruled by Saturn.  While that 10th House cusp can be in any sign, depending on where and when you are born (when your Life begins), it adds attributes of Capricorn and Saturn to your personal 10th House cusp.

Science shows how hormones trigger birth, and the trigger starts in the fetus.  The fetus's Nature determines the moment of birth.

So suppose the Soul chooses the Parents and the moment of Birth to make the "purpose" of this life.

The Soul takes on a Life to realize the potential encoded into the 10th House cusp.

That sign/ruler combination chosen by the Soul is inflected by Capricorn and Saturn (Management and Discipline).

Saturn is often regarded as "purpose" or "ambition."

You are born with an ambition to realize your potential for completing a certain job, a purpose in life, a career.  By Noel Tyl's theory, the Moon position by sign, ruler and House represents your driving need, and Saturn organizes the world around you to fulfill that need.

But to do that, you need to make money, have a job, 6th House.

Another interpretation of the Natural 6th House, Virgo, is "service."

Virgos make great secretaries, accountants, detail oriented people.  Unless they have a Big Picture attribute highlighted elsewhere in their Natal Chart, they tend toward project-oriented professions. They make great health-care professionals, treating each patient as a project.

But there's nothing shallow about Virgo.  They aren't subservient by nature.

The 6th House is put to the service of the 10th -- the ambition, the Purpose Of This Life is served by whatever you do for a living, as a job.  Your career is the purpose of your life, your job is a means to walk the paths of that career.

It is often said the key to real happiness (as in Happily Ever After) is to Serve.

THEORY:  If your 6th House (job) is serving the Purpose of Your Life, your Body (6th house) will be healthy.

In other words, your Soul took God's job-offer to be You and do Whatever Job He Had That Needed Doing.  As long as you are doing the job you were hired by God to do, you will be healthy enough to do it.

You might not be "healthy" by general human standards.  You might be what is termed crippled or disabled.  You might be melting down with autoimune disease.  You might be missing limbs. You might have impaired senses.  If you are doing the job you were hired to do, then you will be healthy enough to do it.

Sometimes the job is to  be sick, dependent, impaired.

Sometimes the job is to be hale, healthy, strong, and the person upon whom the lame and weak depend.  Sometimes the job is to support the weak.  Sometimes the job is to be weak so that the Strong can do their job.

It's all 6th House.  Service equals Health.

The 12th House, the opposite to the 6th, is about the transcendent Soul, the summation of the Life, what it all means.  Neptune is idealism, a transcendent vision through the Soul's eyes, not the eyes of the Body.

There are a lot of insights into the meaning of the 12th House, Pisces ruled by Neptune (which rules Romance, as I keep reminding you).

The 12th is "reflected" into the 6th House.

Here's a story that illustrates (show don't tell) how this 6/12 axis of the Natal Chart works.

We can regard God as the artist who is Creating one-of-a-kind original artwork, each one a human being (or maybe an Alien Soul Mate for a human being).

All of the crafts our artisans practice express a way that the Divine Creates us.

One of those crafts is the silversmith.

If you research on YouTube you might find a video showing how to smelt silver where the silversmith gives tells the student how to determine when all the dross, or impurities, have been burned out of the silver -- leaving only pure silver.  How do you know when to stop smelting?

The clue the silversmith looks for is the reflection of his/her own face in the melted puddle of silver.

When purified, silver becomes a mirror, reflecting the smith's visage back at him/her.

The metaphore for why God smelts us in the fires of Life, gives us all this hardship, obstacles, difficulties, sorrows and grief, is that he's purifying us as silver is purified.  And he'll know we're finished, we're pure, when he sees Himself in us.

The Biblical description of God has long lists of attributes shown to us over the ages - for example, there are 13 Attributes of Mercy (and that's just one thing, Mercy).  Other Attributes likewise have parts.

When you reflect those attributes, He'll stop heating you in His fire.

Any Romance writer trying to create an Alien Love Interest, a non-human Soul Mate for a human, can use one or a few of these attributes to establish the essential humanity of the non-human regardless of the non-human's biology, form or figure.

Here are the 13 Attributes according to My Jewish Learning.
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-13-attributes-of-mercy/2/

---------quote-------
– The Lord! (Adonai)–God is merciful before a person sins! Even though aware that future evil lies dormant within him.

– The Lord! (Adonai)–God is merciful after the sinner has gone astray.

– God (El)–a name that denotes power as ruler over nature and humankind, indicating that God’s mercy sometimes surpasses even the degree indicated by this name.

– Compassionate (rahum)–God is filled with loving sympathy for human frailty does not put people into situations of extreme temptation, and eases the punishment of the guilty.

– Gracious (v’hanun)–God shows mercy even to those who do not deserve it consoling the afflicted and raising up the oppressed.

– Slow to anger (ereh apayim)–God gives the sinner ample time to reflect, improve, and repent.

– Abundant in Kindness (v’rav hesed)–God is kind toward those who lack personal merits, providing more gifts and blessings than they deserve; if one’s personal behavior is evenly balanced between virtue and sin, God tips the scales of justice toward the good.

– Truth (v’emet)–God never reneges on His word to reward those who serve Him.

– Preserver of kindness for thousands of generations (notzeir hesed la-alafim)–God remembers the deeds of the righteous for thebenefit of their less virtuous generations of offspring (thus we constantly invoke the merit of the Patriarchs).

– Forgiver of iniquity (nosei avon)–God forgives intentional sin resulting from an evil disposition, as long as the sinner repents.

– Forgiver of willful sin (pesha)–God allows even those who commit a sin with the malicious intent of rebelling against and angering Him the opportunity to repent.
---------------End Quote-----------

It doesn't matter what religion you espouse, or even if you're an Atheist or Agnostic, you recognize these behaviors as desireable and a signature of the Lovability of a person (human or not).  So most of your target audience will respond to a show-don't-tell illustration that your Alien character just naturally (without thought or consideration, without hesitation) exhibits one or another of these attributes.

And the reverse is true -- the Alien protagonist will recognize the Alien-Within your human protagonist when one or a combination of these traits comes to the fore in the plot.

Notice the phrase above: "as long as the sinner repents."

You may be surprised how fast the "repents" scene, the confession scene, the tell-the-truth scene, establishes rapport between the Character and your Target Reader, even if the Character is Alien.

The Target Reader is selected by what is repented, to whom, and why (maybe also when in the narrative arc confession and repentance take place).  Different readers will applaud a Character's choices of when to fess up to what, and why fessing up is necessary (or not necessary).

Think about the TV Series I Love Lucy -- every episode with a very funny confession scene.

The Values (2nd House) of your Confessing Character are shown-not-told by that choice of when and to what to confess.

In the 3rd book in the Romantic Times Award winning Dushau Trilogy, I hinted at an Alien's contemplation of condemnation by his father and grandfather when he finally would get home and confess.

His trepidation at confronting his family showed a similarity to human values -- even though he is so definitely not human that his wrong-doing does not seem wrong to a human.

http://www.amazon.com/Outreach-Dushau-Trilogy-Book-3-ebook/dp/B002S525DK

Those 13 Attributes of Mercy embody the essence of what it is to be Human, a  Soul wearing a Body that fits like a glove, a work-glove designed for a specific task which the Soul is dead-set on completing come Hell or High Water (10th House Purpose In Life) using that Body (6th House) to do the Job (6th House).

When fully integrated (purified) into that task, the Soul shines through the custom-Created Body and attracts the Soul Mate.  It is the Soul that is "mated" -- not the Body.  So you can easily depict a Human/Alien Romance.

Romance (Neptune/ 12th House) blossoms, Love At First Sight happens, and Health-Job-Service and everything Virgo manifests as the Virtue of Virgo rather than the Vice.

Every astrological sign can manifest as its best virtue or its worst vice, and it could be that whether virtue or vice is apparent depends on how much of the Soul has infused the Body.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com