Scriptwriters have long used novels and short stories as the basis for their work, for both movies and TV shows. I suppose good ideas are hard to come by in Hollywood, so why not poach someone else’s blood, sweat and tears, right? And who among us hasn’t daydreamed about our book being turned into a blockbuster film or Netflix series? In their defense, there are only a dozen or so original plots in the world anyway, and they’ve all been used.

I became a film buff when I was a kid and if the movie was based on a book, I’d usually read it afterward. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that in most cases, the two had little resemblance to each other! These changes were often minor, usually because the book was long or contained mature content, but it made me curious as to how often that happened, and what the results were.

“Double Indemnity” was a bestselling novel by James M. Cain, a cynical tale of greed fueled by lust. Naturally, that called for a movie version to cash in on its popularity. The screenwriters apparently thought Cain hadn’t done his job correctly, because they re-arranged pieces of the plot. The result was a classic film noir that still holds up today. Even Cain grudgingly admitted that Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler did an okay job with their adaptation.

Speaking of Chandler, his breakthrough murder mystery “The Big Sleep” had Hollywood blockbuster stamped all over it. It was the second on-screen pairing of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and Bogart forged the template for every cynical private eye that followed. It’s an entertaining film because of the chemistry between the two stars but unfortunately, you’re left scratching your head at the end and asking “So who did it? And why?” At one point, the writers even consulted Chandler for an answer, but he said he didn’t know. His lack of interest could be because he wasn’t asked to adapt his own novel, and probably didn’t care.

A lot of Ernest Hemingway’s stories made it to the screen, with mixed results. He claimed not to have liked most of them, with two exceptions. The first ten minutes of “The Killers” pretty much copied his short story word for word. When the plot veered into uncovering the motive for the murder, Hemingway stopped watching. He also enjoyed “For Whom the Bell Tolls” because it starred Gary Cooper, whom Hemingway had envisioned when he wrote the book.

He had reservations about another adaptation, “To Have and Have Not.” Hemingway felt that it was the worst book he ever wrote and bet filmmaker Howard Hawks that he couldn’t make a decent movie out of it. He was proved wrong. Of course, the writers only kept the title, changed the names of the characters and basically made it into a carbon copy of “Casablanca,” but who cared? It also helped that it was the first on-screen teaming of Bogart and Bacall (in her film debut), and the heat between the two radiated from the screen. They were married shortly after the film was completed.

There have been some noteworthy exceptions. The first few James Bond films stayed true to Ian Fleming’s novels, especially “From Russia with Love.” “The Hound of the Baskervilles” with Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes is very close to Arthur Conan Doyle’s adventure. “The Godfather” is another example, because Mario Puzo co-wrote the screenplay. “The Maltese Falcon” is faithful to Dashiell Hammett’s book due to screenwriter John Huston lifting scenes and dialogue directly from it.

Bringing James Jones’ World War II epic “From Here to Eternity” to the screen was no easy task. It’s a massive book and Jones didn’t pull any punches in his unflattering portrayal of the United States Army. The book was controversial because of raw language, sex, violence, racial slurs, the primary love interest is a prostitute, and one of the soldiers is gay-for-pay. Somehow, they managed to clean it up and get it past the censors in 1953, and it won a ton of awards.

Several of Donald E. Westlake’s crime capers were turned into entertaining movies, particularly “The Hot Rock,” “The Organization” and “The Split.” When he sold the rights to any of his stories featuring a career criminal named Parker, however, he refused to let the producers use the name Parker unless they bought the entire series, which no one was willing to do. His Parker story “The Hunter” has been filmed twice, as “Point Blank” (with Lee Marvin playing Walker), and “Payback” (with Mel Gibson as Porter). Most of Westlake’s film adaptations retained the personality and nuances of his characters.

Elmore Leonard didn’t fare too well in the true-to-the-source department. While I enjoyed “Get Shorty,” I looked for comparisons to the book but couldn’t find very many. I noticed the same thing with some of Mickey Spillane’s filmed adventures. “Kiss Me Deadly” is a terrific movie, but many of the book’s characters appeared in name only. Nelson DeMille’s “The General’s Daughter” was hard to put down once I began reading it, but I didn’t have that problem with the film version. Robert B. Parker did better with his Spenser series because he took an active role in the development.

Perhaps the low point in book-to-screen adaptations was “The Green Berets” (1967), with John Wayne. Robin Moore’s novel was a factual, non-political story about the elite military unit fighting in Viet Nam. What emerged onscreen was a piece of propaganda designed to sell the public on Wayne’s firm belief that the war was actually good for America. Maybe he thought he was still making those WWII movies where he single-handedly defeated the Axis of Evil.

Pass the popcorn!

by Ashley Lister

“I’d rather have a cup of tea and a slice of cake than do all of that sweaty stuff.”

It was a comment that really pissed me off. And you can tell that I’m really pissed off because I don’t usually end sentences with prepositions.

I don’t mind constructive criticism. For example, being told that characters in a novel I’ve created are unlikeable is often justified: sometimes I write about people who are unlikeable. When someone told me they didn’t like an abrupt ending to one of my stories, I fully agreed. A longer ending would have been more satisfying. Admittedly, it would have involved padding and made the pacing drag, but it would have kept the characters alive for a little longer and that would have been a good thing.

But this comment, the comment about someone preferring a cup of tea and a slice of cake to ‘all of that sweaty stuff’ was fired at me as a direct challenge.
It happened because a colleague had been looking at Amazon and they’d seen my back catalogue (that’s not a euphemism). The colleague had mentioned it to someone else who cast a disdainful eye over the titles and then fixed me with their comment: “I’d rather have a cup of tea and a slice of cake than do all of that sweaty stuff.”

Fine. If you prefer anodyne beverages and pastries to physical intimacy, then you’re perfectly free to make those choices. This is what free will means. Also, if you’re psyche is so severely fucking damaged that you refer to physical intimacy as ‘all of that sweaty stuff’ then, may I suggest, you have that slice of cake and cup of tea at a psychiatrist’s office whilst he discusses your innumerable problems and (hopefully) prescribes euthanasia?

The reason why it annoyed me was because there was so much unnecessary judgement in the comment. It was almost as though, because I’d written extensively on the subject, this person thought I was challenging their opinion on sex and sexuality.

The truth is, I’m a relatively private person. I’ve written several erotic titles and, if you enjoy reading erotica, I think you’ll like my work. However, for those who don’t enjoy erotica, I’m fairly sure they won’t enjoy my back catalogue and I won’t try to force my work on those individuals.

But, whilst I’m not going to push my work on people who don’t want to read it, I don’t have to listen to asinine quips from people who describe sex as ‘all of that sweaty stuff’. And, if someone genuinely prefers tea and cake to physical intimacy, I don’t think their opinion on erotica is worthy of note.

The plot’s the thing, wherein I’ll catch the arousal of the king…” (or something to that effect)

Scheherezade
#BenjaminsMangledMisquotations

I’d like to, every so often, get up on my soapbox and just go off on some random musings about the craft of writing in general and, more specifically, the craft of writing porn. While I admit an enormous amount of smutty writing out there is gawdawful, I also firmly believe that there is a lot of quality porn to be enjoyed, as well. In my humble opinion as a non-professional purveyor and connoisseur of porn of all kinds, one of the differences between the dreck and the good stuff can be found in the consideration the smut-monger puts into the craft itself.

One of the elements of that craft is plot.

It’s a cruel truth that the enormous majority of bad porn out there boils any notion of “plot” down to some version of “insert tab A into slot B, repeat as necessary.” The classic example is the sort of stories found in Penthouse Forum and the like, and which is even more easily found these days on the internet.

I wouldn’t dream of inducing any urge to doze off by dissecting any of the dozens of dictionary meanings of the word, “plot.” For purposes of this discussion, however, this is how I’d like to think of the word.

“Plot” is one of those quirky words that can mean its own opposite. The old English term originally creating a plan or map outlining boundaries of land and then came to refer to the tract of land itself, as well. “I can plot that plot for you” is the same as saying, “I can map that land for you.”

That quirky distinction can also be broadened and kept in mind when crafting a story, as well. From one perspective, the plot is the end result. The goal. The bottom line. The ultimate success or failure of the cunning master plan, either of the storyteller or the story. From the other perspective, the plot is the plan to get to the execution of the end result.

Or, if you want to get all Julia Cameron/Natalie Goldberg about it, plot is the map to get the reader through the writer’s world. The plot ends where the writer chooses to end it. If the writher chooses to continue allowing a tour of his or her world, the plot continues. If not, “The End” and on to the next story.

In any case, it’s a true journey, and not just a random bumper-car ride in an enclosed area.

In my humble opinion, one of the many, many, many things that makes a connoisseur and purveyor of porn such as myself a real snob is the fact that I can get pornographic stories anywhere. Literally, anywhere. And they all have the same “plot,” or rather, “sort of plot,” that comes down to something as simple as, “Insert tab A into Slot B, repeat as necessary,” or some variation thereof.

“Although I love your magazine, I never thought those stories you publish were real until this one time…”

Bleah.

So, if we all want our smut to be a cut above the rest, (and if we are all HERE at THIS website, that’s EXACTLY what we want), let’s consider a few elements of plot.

E.M. Forster said, “The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died, and then the queen died of grief is a plot.” Put another way, “The king had a lover and the queen had a lover is an erotic story. The king had a lover and the queen had a lover and they happened to be the same person is an erotic plot.” Which sounds like a more interesting way to get aroused?

Okay, J.T., you may be saying. That sounds easy enough. How can you come up with a decent plot for an erotic story?

Good question. Let’s back up a bit. How can one come up with a decent plot for a story in general? Anyone who’s ever spent any time studying the craft of writing can think of several reference books off the top of his or her head that might offer plot ideas. There are even more websites that make the same sorts of offers.

One famous text called, The Thirty-six Dramatic Situations by Georges Polti documents thirty-six, count ‘em, thirty-six distinctive dramatic or plot situations, in astonishing detail with copious references. A brief (very brief) summary of one such situation.

TWENTY-THIRD SITUATION: Necessity of Sacrificing Loved Ones

(The Hero; the Beloved Victim; the Necessity for the Sacrifice).

The entry goes on to list several examples of literature including Aeschylus, Sophocles, and on and on and on.

Mind-numbing, is it not? Not to be recommended.

Of course, part of the point is that there are certain plots that are more or less universal; that can be found in most, if not in virtually all forms of storytelling, erotic or not.

Getting back to what Mr. Forster said, whether one says there are ten master plots or twenty or thirty-six (!) they all seem to break down to one central idea.

Something Different Happens.

The queen didn’t just die. Everybody dies. The queen died of grief. Something Different Happened.

A randy young kid goes out with his buds like he does every night, getting into the same kind of trouble every night, and then Something Different Happens and he meets the girl of his dreams who just happens to be from the wrong side of the tracks.

A privileged young man gets to judge a beauty contest, but Something Different Happens and the contestants are goddesses and the winner promises him the wife of the King of Sparta as his prize.

A passionate young bride’s wedded bliss with her husband is cut short because of his war injury. She expects to live the rest of her life like any other soldier’s wife and buck up under her frustration but Something Different Happens and she finds herself inexplicably drawn to the gamekeeper.

To me, just one more humble purveyor and connoisseur of erotica, the difference between the same old stroke tale and a story worth reading comes down to the sense that something different is happening. Something out of the sexual ordinary.

At this point, the Devil’s Advocate in my head is jumping up and screaming, “But what about Character? You haven’t discussed character!”

Indeed I haven’t, which I plan to address soon. For the time being, I want to just throw out there a few thoughts.

For anyone writing or reading an erotic story, what is something different that would make you want to continue doing so?

April marks 20 years since I became a published author. I’d been writing before then, but “Memories Die Last,” the first novel in my popular Nick Seven spy series, was released by a traditional publisher in 2002. To date, I’ve published 28 books (mostly novels, and some shorter ones), and have contributed to a couple of anthologies. I’m also a blogger, freelance writer, editor, and book reviewer. I’ve done more interviews (print and podcast) and guest blogs than I can remember. To say it’s been an interesting 20 years is putting it mildly. Let’s see what’s happened since then.

I learned the importance of personal appearances, reviews and interviews early on, and aggressively marketed myself to bookstores, libraries, festivals and bloggers. Keep in mind, this was right before e-books began to dominate the market, and print was still “it”. Eventually my network grew and I appeared at events in several states throughout the Midwest. I began doing guest speaker gigs with civic groups, then someone helped me get on local TV and radio talk shows. As heady as that sounds, some of those appearances didn’t work out as planned.

I was doing an interview on an internet radio program called Authors First, to promote my second book, another romantic spy thriller. It was a primetime call-in/e-mail show, and I had guested a few months earlier to discuss my first book. The host I drew for that evening, a self-proclaimed conspiracy nut, picked up on a story thread I used about government cover-ups, and kept questioning me about it. I was dodging his grenades pretty well, until he asked for my honest opinion on how the government was handling the war on terror. I momentarily froze, live on the air, while thinking of a response that wouldn’t land me on a federal watchlist.

I’ve had some unique experiences since I got into this crazy business. One was being the keynote speaker for the Indianapolis Book Festival, courtesy of an online radio host who had me as a guest and liked what I had to say. Another time, I did a week-long book signing tour in the Florida Keys. My publicist and I had scheduled appearances at bookstores, gift shops, a resort, and a trendy restaurant, along with sit-downs with the local media. It was a busy week, but I still managed to get a nice tan in between all the smiling-and-signing. I sold a ton of books, too.

It was during that trip that I had a revelation. When I showed up at one of the bookstores for my scheduled appearance, several people were waiting for me so they could get personalized signed copies of my newest book. That made me feel good. I also noticed that my books were on the shelf next to other Florida writers I admired, like Carl Hiaasen, James W. Hall and Tim Dorsey. I thought “Smith, you have arrived!”

Shortly after this, I signed with a traditional romance publisher, and attended my first convention. Being a man who writes straight contemporary romance, I was reluctant to go at first. A friend of mine was one of the sponsors, and she encouraged me to attend. It turned out to be a good experience, and I returned over the next few years. One encounter, though, still lingers.

One of the side gigs I had taken on prior to this was reviewing books for an online romance site. I noticed that the author of a book I recently liked would be attending this convention. My friend knew the woman and introduced me as a fellow romance author. She looked at me like I was a homeless guy she found camping in her living room, and sputtered “B-but…you’re a man!” I smiled and said “Thank you for noticing. I’ll try to do better next time.”

I’ve always written under my real name, and have been upfront that my books have adult content. I don’t recommend them to anyone under 18, or to those who may be uncomfortable reading that kind of material. Better to lose a sale than offend someone. My family members are aware of the steamy scenes in my books, and I always got the biggest kick out of my late mother’s reaction. When I hit my stride as an author, she was in her early 80s. She was an avid reader, and had read everything written by Mickey Spillane, Harold Robbins and Jacqueline Susanne. Whenever I asked what she thought of my newest book, she gave an honest appraisal, and usually commented that the erotic scenes were “well-written and realistic.” Praise indeed.

I’m often asked if my stories are based on personal experiences. I love that one because it gives me an excuse to tease people with “Maybe yes, maybe no,” which is true. I just don’t tell them where fact ends and fiction begins. When I wrote “Anywhere the Heart Goes,” I was recalling my adjustments after a bad break-up, so the lead character experienced the same things. “Mistletoe and Palm Trees” was the result of a vacation I took by myself when my traveling companion had to cancel at the last moment. “Catch and Release” was inspired by something I observed while having lunch at a waterfront bistro. Most of “The Neon Jungle” was influenced by my experiences with a Dayton-area music organization that wasn’t entirely legitimate.

One of the best marketing tools I use came about by accident. When I was doing the book signing tour in The Keys, I was interviewed by a local newspaper writer. The following week, he e-mailed me the story and promised to send me a print copy. The headline in the PDF read “Former Spy Finds Paradise in Ohio Man’s Novels,” complete with my photo. I was ecstatic. When the print version arrived, it had been shortened to “Former Spy Finds Paradise in Ohio,” situated right above my head shot. I still display that story at personal appearances. People stop to read it, see the headline and my face, then look up and see me. Their gaze goes back to the page then up to me, followed by them asking if I’m the former spy. I just smile and shrug.

I’ve discovered that you can have some fun when people find out you write erotic romance. It’s a great way to insert a laugh into a conversation when you talk about impossible sex positions, or how many names there are for certain body parts. Once, I broke up a family engagement party by introducing myself as “The guy who writes dirty books.” Most people thought that was funny, but for some reason, my nephew’s prospective in-laws weren’t amused.


Tim Smith is an award-winning, bestselling author of romantic mystery/thrillers and contemporary romance. He is also a freelance writer, editor, blogger and photographer. When he isn’t pursuing those interests, he can be found in the Florida Keys, doing research in between parasailing and seeking out the perfect Mojito.

The following writing exercise is taken from my book: How to Write Short Stories and Get Them Published.

One way to create new and unusual ideas is to write a sentence where each subsequent word begins with the next letter of the alphabet. For instance:

“All big children,” Donald explains, “find great happiness in jumpsuits. Kids like making new outfits popular.”

Quentin recoiled, surprised this uncommon view was…

Admittedly, this makes little sense. But it’s already inspiring me to think about the importance of clothes within the fiction I create. My mind is currently torn between ideas of researching sumptuary laws, and a discussion I had with a student who claimed he was the victim of ‘tracksuit racism’. Perhaps my thoughts might find a way of combining these two ideas.

For those who find it too easy to compile a sentence in alphabetical order, try to continue the sentence (or sentences) by returning to the start of the alphabet and continuing.

A boy child, Derek, encountered fossilised golden Hadrosauruses in Jane’s kitchen. Like many nerds, only practising quantitative rational study, to unequivocally verify wild xenolithic (yellowing) zoological anomalies, brainy clever-clogs Derek expected fame…

Again, I have no idea where this might be going, or where it came from. However, the idea of writing something about palaeontology and the excavation (or reanimation, or revisitation) of dinosaurs is now exciting me. Also, the idea of excavating a dinosaur’s fossilised remains from a kitchen strikes me as something whimsical and potentially workable in a piece of fiction.

A variation on this exercise is to take any single letter of the alphabet and see how long you can continue to write a sentence that makes some level of sense.

The Austrian-American author Walter Abish used this form of constrained-writing exercise to produce the novel Alphabetical Africa. The conceit behind Abish’s novel is that the first chapter contains only words beginning with the letter ‘a’. The second chapter contains only words beginning with ‘a’ or ‘b’ and this trend continues through the first twenty-six chapters of the novel. In the second half of the novel (there are fifty-two chapters in total) words beginning with the letter ‘z’ disappear in Chapter 27, and there are no words beginning with the letter ‘y’ in Chapter 28, etc.

To illustrate this with my own writing, below is an alliterative sentence which I’ve begun with the letter ‘m’.

Mondays make most men (mainly manly, muscular, macho-men) miserable. Maybe Monday-morning mating might make more men merry? Mayhap midday martinis might make Mondays more manageable? Meh! Most Mondays might maintain misery, making millions melancholic.

I’ll be honest and admit I have no idea where this is going (or where it came from). However, on a level of inspiration, I’m already thinking that I need to produce a piece of poetry that uses excessive alliteration for comic effect. The repetition of that ‘m’ sound is so obvious when this is read aloud it comes close to making the whole piece unintelligible.

I also think there’s something very relatable about miserable Monday mornings. Perhaps, as a way of introducing a character in a piece of fiction, I might introduce him or her trying to put on a brave face and cope with the Monday morning blues. Conversely, I might write a story where the villain is someone who smiles and acts obscenely cheerful on Monday morning.

Write an alphabetical sentence. Go on for as long as possible (keeping in mind that the letters X,Y and Z don’t make this exercise easy). If the challenge is not too demanding, work backwards once you’ve completed a sentence.

Alternatively, select a letter of the alphabet at random and see how long you can continue a sentence (or string of sentences) using only words that begin with that letter.

Exercises such as these can sometimes yield fresh and surprising concepts or descriptions. Whatever ideas they inspire, make sure you record them in your notebook so that they can be utilised later.

How to Write Short Stories and Get Them Published is available through all major suppliers.

Being both a serious connoisseur and a purveyor of the erotic arts does come with its burdens.  All that research, research, research!

Thank you!  Don’t forget to tip your waitress!

However, to be honest, I wouldn’t call it a burden to admit that I’m proud to be something of a smutmonger.  And when I say I’m a “serious” connoisseur, I don’t just mean, “Wow, J.T.  That is a seriously large collection of porn you have.”  I mean that, well, I think seriously about it.  What makes this form of expression of human sexuality clinical and dry and that one steamy, squishy and squelchy?  What separates the good stuff from the bad stuff?  And why?

Being both a reader and a writer of erotica creates a special challenge.  Even when I’m specifically reading something, anything for pleasure, I do it with a writer’s eye.  When I read a conversation on the page, for example, I find I’m not just trying to follow the thread of the plot, but I’m actively critiquing the writer’s craft.  My mind races with thoughts like:

“Ouch!  All those adverbs!”

“That’s a lot of unnecessary exposition.”

“I know who you’re talking to.  You don’t have to keep saying his name over and over.”

Or, the worst,

“I COULD WRITE BETTER CRAP THAN THIS!”

The writer’s curse.  Of course, we wouldn’t be writers if we weren’t readers first.  We write the types of things we want to read, and we read the types of things we want to write.

And we divide the things we like to read into two groups.

The first group consists of books that, when we finish them, we put them down and say something like, “Wow.  That was very good.  Someday, if I work really hard at my craft and keep at it, and if I’m lucky, I could possibly write that well.”

The second group consists of books that we finish, not by closing the book with a contented sigh, but usually with an “Ugh.  I could write better crap than this.”  Legend has it that James Fenimore Cooper, author of novels like The Last of the Mohicans and The Deerslayer launched his own literary career by launching a novel he wasn’t enjoying into the nearest fireplace.

I confess that for inspiration I often read the classics and poetry, as well as great contemporary novelists as well as yarn-spinners.  The works of Alexandre Dumas, Elmore Leonard, Larry McMurtry, Ranier Maria Wilke and Umberto Eco are all within arm’s reach as I type these words.

What parks me in the seat and gets me working is the fact that E.L. James, author of the Fifty Shades cultural phenomenon, has a net worth of $150 million dollars.

I mean, “inner goddess?”  C’mon!

I will admit that I’ve read the Fifty Shades books (okay, I got all the way through the first two, but I just didn’t have the strength for Fifty Shades Freed.)  They do have their merits, which I’ll get to shortly.

But still, if you’re at this website, you’re looking for quality porn, right?  Good resources.  Useful advice.  In my own small way, I’m here to provide.

As I said earlier, part of learning the writer’s craft is reading with a critical eye, often to the point where it becomes a habit.  Reading becomes part of the learning and the training experience.

I want to share some of my own training experiences, now.  I’ve said, and I strongly believe, that there’s a lot to be learned from studying mistakes, both one’s own mistakes, and those of others.

But there’s also a lot to be gained from studying the good stuff too, of course.  I have ten works in my library that I suggest be picked up by anyone with a critical eye, to get an idea not just of appreciating the work itself, but how the work was put together.  This is stuff that is in the first category, in my humble opinion.

Some caveats.  First, this is In My Humble Opinion.  I can be, and am, often wrong.  Just ask my ex.  By the same token, my opinion is mine alone.  It’s also free, so you have an idea of its value.  If you opt to step outside the box, knock yourself out.  If you choose to ignore me, ditto.  If you choose to argue with me, let’s rumble.

Secondly, this is not meant to be a comprehensive list, nor is it intended to be a syllabus for “Erotica 101.”  The Marquis De Sade is not on this list because I haven’t read him.  Nabokov’s Lolita isn’t on this list because I haven’t read it, although I should.  Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying isn’t on this list because while I enjoyed it, I could think of ten better examples for my point, and ten seemed like a good number at which to stop.

Thirdly, while the list is sorta chronological, it’s mostly not really.  The ranking is in no way a reflection of my opinion of the works’ quality or preference, it’s just the order that came to me when I started writing them down.

1. Fanny Hill by John Cleland. It’s just my opinion, but I think erotic stories are best told in the first person.  They just seem more intimate and experiential, especially when the narrator has a strong, entertaining voice.  The sex itself is pretty quaint by today’s standards, but if I wanted to write a period piece, I’d read this one to get a flavor of how a good voice should sound for that era.
2. A Man With A Maid by Anonymous. This is typical of the Victorian-era BDSM genre, with a typical plot.  A man basically kidnaps a woman, rapes and tortures her, (in a good way, of course), until she succumbs to her own desires and becomes a willing partner.  I have SERIOUS problems with this book on many levels, especially but not limited to the concept of consent, but, frankly, it’s an excellent representative example of the works of this genre of the time.  It’s also easy to find on Amazon, and this particular book is a quick read, which is a quality I admire.
3. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence. Of course.  Constance Chatterley is everything Anastasia Steele isn’t.  Constance is strong-willed, vivacious, passionate, determined, and a confident sexual animal.  She’s frustrated as Hell, not just sexually but over post-war life and the tedium of her existence, and she’s damned vocal about it all.  Edmund Wilson’s 1929 review from “The Atlantic” said Lawrence had “written the best descriptions of sexual experience which have yet been done in English.”  Hard to disagree.
4. Delta of Venus by Anais Nin. Anything of hers, really.  She was born in France and spoke Spanish, French and Catalan before becoming proficient in English.  I think that, like other writers in English who hadn’t learned it first, (James Joyce and Dylan Thomas, for example), having to translate thoughts in their own head into a complex and logic-defying language like English forced Ms. Nin to acquire a precise style like that of a ballet dancer.
5. Selected Works by Henry Miller. He was a Beat before Jack Kerouac, and Gonzo before Hunter S. Thompson.  The guy might as well have opened a vein and drained blood into the inkwell before he started his daily pages.  Beyond learning how to be raw with every word, I confess reading Miller is something of an endurance test.  Getting all the way through Tropic of Cancer is like being able to say you got all the way through Moby-Dick or  
6. The Story of O by Pauline Reage. I’m not sure if it’s a characteristic of modern BDSM novels to be bleak, or if it’s a characteristic of French erotic novels to be bleak, but if it’s a characteristic of modern French BDSM erotic novels to be bleak as fuck, this is the perfect example.  I did think the protagonist was more fully rounded than Anastasia Steele, and while the novel is bleak, bleak, bleak, the sex scenes are very bleak and very hot.
7. Vox by Nicholson Baker.  I recommend this one to be read as an example of thinking way, way, way outside the box.  It’s all dialogue.  The two people are talking over the phone.  When this novel first hit the bookshelves, it was dynamite, and with good reason.  I tried re-reading it a few years ago, and I found a lot of the “groundbreaking” stuff to be not so much the second time around.  Still, I consider this a must-read just for the sake of considering the possibilities.
8. The Beauty Books by Anne Rice. Pure fantasy, pure porn.  The sex is incredible, and by that I mean, “hard to believe,” the prose is flowery, the dialogue is contorted, and the characters are archetypes bordering on stereotypes.  And the books are rousing fun.  Another way to be inspired to throw caution to the wind.
9. The Happy Hooker, Xaviera! Her Continuing Adventures, and Xaviera Goes Wild by Xaviera Hollander. After the so-called “Happy Hooker” retired to write her column for Penthouse, she also put out several pseudo-autobiographical books describing her many sexual antics and adventures.  Like with the Beauty books, these are just sheer, silly, fun.
10. The Lost Girls by Alan Moore and Beverly Gaddis. Literally, a porno-graphic novel.  Alice “In Wonderland” Liddell, Dorothy “Wizard of Oz” Gale and Wendy “Peter Pan” Darling are all grown up, horny as Hell, and happily fingering and fucking and debauching themselves and everyone around them on the eve of the Great War.  Not just another example of pushing the envelope, but absolutely crushing it.
11. Honorable Mention. A few years ago, I found myself cursed with having to wait in an airport and I’d already finished everything I’d brought to read.  Someone had left a paperback on one of the seats at the terminal and I, naturally, picked it up.  It was a Jackie Collins novel, and I only remember the heroine was named “Lucky.”  And it was terrific.  I skipped over a lot of the mob stuff, but the sex scenes were great, ripping fun, and I was thrilled to have discovered a hidden treasure.
12. Honorable Mention #2  I said I’d make a more detailed statement about the quality of the works of E.L. James.  She nailed it.  She found a chord and she struck it and she clobbered it.  More power to her.  And by all means, I recommend reading her.  If you can find her secret, bravo.  If not, well….I can vouch for the fact that her books are great for getting the fire going on a cold winter’s night.

There’s the list.  Read it, ignore it, delete it, line the birdcage with it, make your own list.

A special note about Ms. Rice.  She used to say, “Artists are meant to be madmen, to disturb and shock us.”  By that definition, Ms. Rice was an artist of the first order.  I’ve already mentioned her Beauty books, but just about everything else she wrote was in the stratosphere of, “Holy shit!  What happens next?”  I mean, in The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, the very first book…Prince Alexi…the punishment…his anus….that statue…the stone phallus…the Stone Phallus!!!

But there’s another reason Anne Rice is a Grand Dame of the Damned, at least in my humble opinion.  Awhile back, I came across a quote by Ms. Rice about economics and standards of living in the United States.  It was intelligent and insightful, and completely unlike anything I’d ever read or heard by or about Ms. Rice.  I’m not saying I thought she was an idiot or incapable of such deep thoughts; just the opposite.  It’s like learning Rachel Maddow is an expert in ancient Greek and is working on her own translation of The Odyssey as a side gig.  I believed it, and of course, anything you find on the internet is 100% reliable, but I got a wild hair.  I reached out to Ms. Rice via social media, took a flying leap, asked if she’d said the quote, and waited to see what would happen.

What happened is, Ms. Rice responded.

It was short and very sweet.  Yes, she’d said the quote.  She thanked me for being a fan and she also thanked me for having the courtesy to reach out and verify what she’d said.  It took maybe a minute out of her day to send that DM, but wow.

Anne Rice was a great writer, a great artist, a great pornographer, and a damned nice lady.

I will miss her.

What’s on your list?