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Lisabet Sarai

The Writer’s Toolbox: Dialogue

by | April 21, 2020 | | 0 Comments

Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash

I’ve written about dialogue before on this blog, but it seems an important enough topic that I wanted to give it another go.

The Functions of Dialogue

An author has many techniques and tools available to help her tell her story. One of the most useful is dialogue. Dialogue is the literal speech of characters, often in conversation with one another.

Example A

Louisa asked me what I planned to do today. I replied with something non-committal.

Example B

“What about today?” Louisa asked. “What are your plans?”

“I’m really not sure. Depends on what I find when I check my email.”

Example A above is not dialogue. Even though it refers to characters’ speech, it does not include the actual words spoken, as provided by Example B.

Dialogue supports story telling in a variety of important ways. First of all, dialogue reveals the nature of characters. The words that the characters choose can convey information about the characters’ emotional state, educational level, ethnicity, and style of interaction. Also, dialogue can clarify the relationships between characters. Are they intimates or casual acquaintances? Is there a power differential, e.g. between an employer and an employee, or a royal and his servant? Consider the following variants on Example B.

Example C

“What about today?” Louisa asked. “What are your plans?”

“Dunno. Depends.”

Example D

“What are your plans for today, sir? Will you be needing me?”

“I’m not sure, Louisa. Perhaps. I’ll ring if I require your assistance.”

In Example C, we can surmise that the second speaker is close to Louisa, given his informal grammar. He might also be a surly teenager! Example D makes it obvious that the second speaker is in some sense the master, and the first is his subordinate.

Dialogue can also be used to advance the action in your story. Well-crafted dialogue can substitute for describing what the characters are doing.

Example E

“Quick! The ceiling’s on fire! It could collapse at any moment!”

“If I can just get this damn window open – argh, it’s stuck – wait, it’s moving – there! Come on, I’ll give you a boost!”

Example E (hopefully) makes the characters actions clear while also revealing something about their emotional state.

Finally, dialogue can inform your reader about backstory or reveal information that is essential for the plot.

Example F

“We found an empty gasoline can in the back yard, and half a dozen burnt kitchen matches. Must have been arson.”

“I’ll bet that it was Henry Jones. He’s had it in for me ever since Joyce chose to marry me instead of him.”

As the author, I could have described the first speaker’s actions in finding the evidence. Perhaps I could have introduced the envious Henry earlier and explained his history. However, using dialogue I can convey this information while also giving the reader some sense of the characters’ personalities and styles.

In all the examples above, I have presented only the characters’ words, along with the occasional speech tag (see below). It is quite common, though, to intersperse speech with descriptions of actions or emotions:

Example G

Charanjit came to the door as Benton sat eating the last of his sweet rice, sometime around noon. “We are ready to roll, my friend.” His clothes were soaked from head to toe and his puttees were spattered with mud, but his smile was cheerful. “The radiator is fixed.”

“Good.” Benson smiled back. “I owe you for last night.”

Charanjit cocked his head. “It is nothing. Only a trip to Darwha – you have already paid for the radiator.”

Benton chuckled. “No, not that. I was talking about the woman. You’ll have to tell me what I owe you—whatever you paid, it was not enough. She was very fine.”

Charanjit frowned. “What woman, Joseph? I did not pay for a woman.”

(from “Monsoon”, by Arinn Dembo, Best Fantastic Erotica, Circlet Press 2007)

Example G uses dialogue to convey plot information and character relationships, but relies on physical description (smiled, cocked his head, frowned, etc.) to explicate the characters’ emotions.

It is perfectly possible to write a story without any dialogue at all. At the same time, I have read stories which were dialogue only. The entire background, plot and character development were all communicated by what the characters were saying. As an author, you need to decide how to best use dialogue in your writing. However, there are several pitfalls in using dialogue of which you should be aware.

Common Problems with Dialogue

Punctuating Dialogue

Dialogue should always appear inside quotation marks. In American English, the text of the character’s speech should be enclosed in double quotes “like this”. Some publishers who use British English specify that speech should be enclosed in single quotes instead, ‘like this’. In either case, a reference to someone else’s speech inside a quotation should use the opposite style of quotation mark. For example:

Example H

“It wasn’t John F. Kennedy who said ‘I have a dream’. It was Martin Luther King,” Robert insisted.

(American English style)

Many authors are unsure of how to punctuate dialogue when it includes so-called speech tags such as I said or Robert insisted. The general rule is that the punctuation of the sentence being spoken goes inside the quotation marks. Futhermore, instead of using a period to punctuate a statement, one should use a comma (as shown in Example H). This is only true when the quoted speech is followed by a speech tag. Example J below shows the correct American English punctuation for statements, questions and exclamations, with and without speech tags.

Example J

“Dialogue is easy,” Mary said. “It’s creating a plot that is difficult.”

“How can I tell whether to use dialogue or not?” asked Jim. “Can you explain?”

“Easy!” exclaimed Mary. “Can you hear the characters talking in your head? If so, use dialogue!”

Dialect

When a character has particular ethnic or social background, it’s tempting to try to indicate this in his dialogue by using non-standard or phonetic spellings.

Example K

“Youse guys are dead meat,” threatened Joe. “Yer not gettin’ away from me this time.”

“Y’all sher gave me a start. I hain’t seen anythin so black in a week a Sundays.”

“Sher, and she’s a wee bairn.”

Used judiciously, dialect, and especially regional vocabulary or idioms, can enhance your dialogue, making it more colorful and expressive. Most editors, however, frown on non-standard spellings like the ones employed in Example K. Instead of distorting the spelling of words, you can use typical cadence of speech from a particular ethnic group as well as distinctive expletives or expressions. Be careful, too, in using foreign terms or words that are likely to be unfamiliar to your readers (like “bairn”, above). This can be a particular problem with historical fiction. You need to consider whether the context will be sufficient to clarify the meaning. When in doubt, it is better to use common or standard words then to employ a special term that might confuse or confound your readers.

Conversational versus Formal Style

One of my personal problems when I began writing was that my dialogue was far too formal. My characters all spoke in full sentences and rarely if ever used contractions. In fact, except in special circumstances (such as public speeches), people tend to use much more informal language in speech than in writing. Sentence fragments are common, as is slang and contractions. Interjections (words like “Hey!”, “Huh?”, “Um…”) are interspersed with content and help to convey emotion. My early dialogue sounded stiff and unnatural, and all my characters talked as though they had PhDs.

A strategy for making dialogue more natural is to try reading it aloud. Do your characters sound realistic? Do they interrupt themselves? Do they express emotion as well as information?

Improving your dialogue

Learning to write realistic dialogue takes practice. Listening can help. Tune in and eavesdrop on the conversations you might overhear on the bus or waiting in line at the grocery store.

Then, when you sit down to write your own dialogue, try to listen to your characters. Imagine them speaking. Hear them in the your head.

Another great way to practice is to write all-dialogue Flashers. In case you’re not familiar with the term, a flasher is an entire story in only two hundred (or some people say, one hundred!) words. That’s tough to do – but it becomes even more of a challenge if you try to use only conversation to push the plot forward.

Sundays in the Storytime email list are dedicated to flashers (and poems). If you’d like to see how it’s done, or try your hand yourself, you can join the Storytime list here.

Meanwhile, I’ll end with an all dialogue flasher I wrote a few years ago. It’s particularly appropriate since I’m currently immersed in a steam punk erotica WIP!

Research

By Lisabet Sarai

“Miss Meriweather. Increase the gain by another order of magnitude. Ah—oh, by Newton’s apples!—”

“Is that too much, Professor? Shall I dial it back?”

“No, no, we must continue. Another notch, please.”

“But your face is scarlet, sir. And your member—Oh, God, are those sparks?”

“To be expected when experimenting with electrical forces, Miss Meriweather. Adjust the rheostat as I’ve instructed. Argh—that’s good, excellent…Oh! More. More…!”

“Sir, the boiler will blow. The needle’s halfway into the red zone already.”

“We need more power—more steam—oh, incredible! Amazing! We shall be the first to chronicle the detailed response of the male organ to various levels of electrical stimulation—oh, by Aristotle, turn it up, girl! Don’t stop now!”

“I smell burning. And you’re drenched with sweat.”

“All—all the better—ah! Enhances conductivity—what? What are you doing?“

“Protecting you from excessive scientific curiosity. I don’t want you hurt.”

“But—I was so close to a breakthrough… Unstrap me immediately, Miss Meriweather. If you won’t assist me, I’ll have to man the controls myself.”

“Sorry, Professor. I can’t do that.”

“You disobedient little hussy! And where—oh, by Pythagoras, you’re not wearing knickers!”

“Before you research artificial sexual stimulation, sir, shouldn’t you investigate the real thing?”

 

Sex versus Story

by | March 21, 2020 | | 5 Comments

Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels

 

I’ve always been a story teller. I started reading other people’s stories when I was four. Without any particular prompting, I began to create my own. Of course, my dad served as a model, regaling my siblings and me with his wildly original tales of ghosts and monsters, and my early teachers encouraged my knack for narrative, but I probably would have written stories even without those influences. It’s just part of who I am.

During the third decade of my life, I began producing erotic stories – stories about the experience of desire, and its fulfillment. My own rather broad experiences as well as my still-unrealized personal fantasies inspired my early erotica. Those tales included a lot of sex. This didn’t get in the way of the plot or character development, though, because these books were in some sense sexual coming-of-age stories. They chronicled the heroine’s journeys as she explored and came to understand and accept her own sexuality – especially her interest in power exchange. In a sense, the sex was the story, the escalating intensity of the erotic encounters teaching the heroine who she was – a sensual, polymorphously perverse creature destined to live outside the bounds of conventional “morality”.

When I began writing erotic romance, the shape of my tales changed. Now the plot was about the development of a loving relationship, as is traditional in romance. Still, this was a sort of journey, and once again sexual interludes formed the milestones along the way.

In the last couple of years, I’ve been experimenting with a different sort of erotica: sex-first, over-the-top tales with many characters, all of whom are engaged in outrageously lewd activities with one another, without, in most cases, the societal whitewash of romance. For want of a better label, I’ll call this genre “stroke”, though this term has some negative connotations. The basic idea is to provide readers with plenty of heat and variety, without any angst. My Vegas Babes series epitomizes this genre.

It’s great fun to write stroke fiction, because I can let my dirty imagination run free. I don’t have to worry about delivering the sine qua non of romance: fidelity, a focus on the protagonists’ relationship only, and a long term commitment. Even when my characters are in love or married, they can enjoy themselves with other partners. Furthermore, I can mix up MF, FF, and MM interactions in the same book, a practice that romance readers seem to loathe.

So I just started a new stroke series. The genre is steam punk erotica, with tongue firmly in cheek. However, I appear to have a new problem. For the first time, story is getting in the way of sex.

Let me explain. My current WIP, set in an alt-Victorian world, follows the progress of a brilliant young female engineer, Gillian Smith, as she tries to win a place in the secretive Toymakers Guild, an organization that creates bespoke sexual devices on commission from the wealthy and influential. As might be expected from a group of people who design outrageous sex toys, a lot of carnal activity goes on in the remote Devon mansion where the Guild is located. Gillian is an enthusiastic participant – confirming the fact that she’s well suited to be a member – but her ultimate focus is on being accepted as an official apprentice, not on getting her rocks off.

My rough mental outline has her proving herself to the Guild, demonstrating not only her technical competence but also her resourcefulness and her loyalty. Along the way, she succumbs (willingly) to various lures of the flesh. That’s a good thing – I wouldn’t have a stroke book if she didn’t. However, my efforts to introduce the necessary characters and to sketch out the conflicts that will come to a head later in the book are making it hard to include as much sex as I’d like – or perhaps I should say, as much sex as the book requires.

As a rule of thumb, a stroke book needs some sex in every chapter. Otherwise, the folks who are reading only for the naughty stuff will start to get bored. But I find myself balking at the idea of throwing in truly gratuitous sex scenes that are unrelated to the plot. Even if I try, I can’t just write disconnected sex scenes. That’s not a story. There’s no build-up, no narrative arc, no crisis and resolution. And without those essential dynamics, readers who are looking for more than just sex are going to be disappointed.

Hence I find myself struggling, trying to figure out how to make each sex scene an organic part of the story, when for once my story is not fundamentally about sex.

Maybe that’s the crux of the issue. Perhaps I need to revisit my ideas about Gillian’s motivation. It could be that in order to make this book work, her journey has to become sexual, as much as emotional and intellectual. I’ve planned some femdom scenes for later – perhaps this book is really about Gillian becoming a Domme, not about her finding a place as a Guild apprentice.

Interesting thought. Maybe that’s a path to the synthesis of sex and story that I’m seeking.

Other Eyes

by | February 21, 2020 | | 1 Comment

 

Writing can be a solitary occupation. Sure, your characters may be clamoring in your head, haranguing you and trying to hijack the plot, but ultimately you’re sitting by yourself in front of the keyboard, making the decisions and turning those choices into (hopefully) engrossing and sexy prose. It’s your book, and when you’re stuck, you’re more or less on your own.

We’re all a bit in love with our own work – I am, at least, and I suspect if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll probably confess to the same feelings. To be emotionally invested in our writing makes sense. If we didn’t care about both the process and the result, why would we bother? However, this makes it very difficult to be objective about the stories we create.

We can edit from dawn to dusk, yet still might not see some of the glaring flaws in our masterpiece. No tale is so perfect that it cannot be improved. No matter how imaginative we are, no matter how experienced in the writing craft, we all have our blind spots. That’s why participating in a critique group can be so worthwhile.

Submitting your work to a critique group allows you to see it through the eyes of others. A story offered for critique must stand on its own. When you’re reading your own work, you can’t help being aware of the background: your intentions, the origins of the premise, the characters’ back stories, all the ideas you’ve considered but decided not to include. Someone reading to critique evaluates the tale solely on its own merits. For instance, a passage that’s crystal clear to you might be judged as confusing, because you have extra knowledge that didn’t quite make it into the text. No matter how ruthless you try to be in self-editing – no matter how willing you are to kill your darlings – you can’t completely separate yourself from the process of creation, a personal process that will never be accessible to your final readers. An insightful critique can highlight gaps where critical information exists in your mind, but is missing on the page.

In a productive critique group, members tend to have different foci and different skills. Some people excel at noticing typos, misspellings and grammar gaffes. Others are particularly good at pointing out problems with sentence structure: excessive repetition, awkward phrasing, run-on sentences, sentences that are too long or too short. One critique might highlight issues with pacing or continuity; another the use of anachronisms or terminology inappropriate to the time or setting; a third, “head-hopping”, that is, slips in maintaining a consistent point of view.

Members of the ERWA Storytime critique group also tend to comment on the sexual content of the submitted stories. Maybe the sex develops too abruptly. Maybe the erotic pace drags. Maybe the characters’ actions or reactions are not plausible. Perhaps some aspect of a tale has the potential to trigger readers’ traumas, or makes it more likely that a tale will be banned by more mainstream sales channels. Many crit groups won’t deal with sexually explicit content; the members are too embarrassed. Storytime may be unique in this regard.

Of course, every author wants to receive critiques that read like rave reviews. This is even more true for erotica than other genres, I believe, because authors of erotica can’t help but inject a lot of their personal sexual interests and emotions into their work. Storytime provides a unique opportunity to test the erotic appeal of our favorite sexy scenarios on a sympathetic and broad-minded audience.

Ultimately, though, objective criticism is more valuable than unbridled enthusiasm.

I’ve been a member of ERWA for more than twenty years, and during the first few was an active participant in the Storytime list. (Yes, Storytime has been around that long!) Then I stopped subscribing for more than a decade, mostly due to lack of time. I returned when we started working on the ERWA anthology Unearthly Delights, since we planned to use the list as the submission mechanism. I’ve stayed because I enjoy the diverse authorly talent represented in the group, and for the invaluable advice I’ve received on my own stuff.

I don’t have the time to read and crit every piece that comes through the list, and I don’t submit every story I write, but I try to maintain a good karmic balance. Meanwhile, I can say without reservation that every piece on which I have received crits has become much stronger due to the process.

Not that I follow all the advice I receive. Working with a crit group is different from engaging with an editor. With an editor, there’s a power differential, unless you’re paying out of your own pocket. The editor assigned by a publisher plays the role of enforcer. He or she is tasked with making sure that your work fits the publisher’s style guides and follows their content rules, in addition to correcting typos and grammaticos. I’ve had editors make some pretty ridiculous “suggestions”, which I was more or less forced to accept.

In a contrast, everyone in a crit group understands that a critique represents one person’s view, and should be viewed as advisory rather than prescriptive. We are a community of equals, dedicated to helping one another hone our craft.

I’m writing this on Sunday, 16 February, and feeling somewhat bereft, because Storytime has been offline since last Wednesday. The tech folks are working on the problem, but meanwhile, my Sunday is a bit emptier without the usual flashers. Indeed, I have a flasher of my own queued up, targeted at one particular member of the group whom I know likes this particular sub-genre. Alas, I’ll have to wait to share it.

I do hope that by the time this blog post appears, on Friday 21 February, the issue will be resolved. I can write and publish decent stories (or perhaps I should say “indecent”) without receiving crits, but I know my work will be both technically improved and more appealing to readers if I can have the benefit of other eyes.

 

If we could interrupt for a moment….

by | February 16, 2020 | | 2 Comments

Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

Now that we – uhum! – have your attention, we’d like to let you know that we’re currently having some problems with the ERWA email lists – Storytime, Writers, Parlor and Admin.

All lists are currently inactive while we deal with a subscription matter. If you have been unable to email the lists, we can assure you that it is not because you have been personally or individually unsubscribed. The list suspension could take a few days to resolve. We’d like to ask for your patience in the meantime.

Meanwhile, why not browse through the blog, or sample some of the great content in the Gallery?

Thanks for your understanding!

 

 

 

 

 

Blogging for Fun and Profit

by | January 21, 2020 | | 1 Comment

Sometime in 2020, my blog Beyond Romance will probably hit a million views. I’m at 957,000 right now. That seems like a lot – until I remember that I created the blog ten years ago!

Still, an average of one hundred thousand views per year… not too bad for an obscure author of smut. Some people, at least, are paying attention.

I’m always trying to figure out, of course, how to attract more of them.

Blogging is my primary form of online promotion. I don’t do Facebook or Instagram, and spend only a few minutes per day on Twitter. This is partly due to privacy concerns, partly because I’m in a different time zone from most of my readers, so real-time engagement doesn’t mean much. The blog lets me accommodate my irregular work and travel schedule by setting up posts in advance. It also permits me to be as long-winded as I desire. No obscure, hash-sign-laden snippets for me!

These days I know that some people view blogs as incredibly antiquated. The typical attention span seems to have decreased to the point that nobody wants to read more than headlines. A few thousand words is just too much work. The Oh Get a Grip group blog recently shut down after more then ten years, because we felt like we were writing for nobody but ourselves, and I suspect that other authors are considering whether blogging is worth the effort.

For me, the answer is obvious. Aside from the convenience issue I raised above, blogging offers many advantages not provided by other forms of social media.

Blogs are persistent. If I post an excerpt from one of my books, I can link to that material in the future, for instance when I release the next book in the series. When I post a review, I can include references to previous reviews by the same author. It may seem like a lot of effort to create a blog post, but once it has been created, it doesn’t evaporate into cyberspace.

I can blog to suit my mood. If you browse Beyond Romance, you will find a wide variety of different material: essays reflecting on my life or my writing career; discussions of sexuality and society; articles about the writer’s craft or about publishing; humor and parodies; flash fiction, short stories and poetry; posts about my favorite charities; book reviews; and of course promotional posts highlighting my books. The blog is my personal notebook, my soapbox, my playground. The content and format are totally up to me.

The blog helps me network. I usually host two or three guest authors and promotional tours per week. This gives me the chance to connect with other writers, who are often willing to reciprocate by helping me promote my work.

Hosting other authors brings new readers. Every time I share information about a colleague’s books, that becomes an opportunity to draw her fans to my site and introduce them to my work.

Syndication increases the blog impact. A standard Internet protocol called RSS (Really Simple Syndication) makes it possible for other sites to easily republish blog content. In my case, I use RSS to feed my blog to my Amazon Author Page and my Goodreads Author Profile. I also use Triberr to extend the reach of my posts. This is a collaborative social media platform where “tribes” (in my case, groups of authors) commit to sharing each other’s content. Beyond Romance feeds to all my eight tribes, so my blog posts get liked and shared on many people’s Twitter and Facebook streams. As far as I know, no other form of social media provides this sort of syndication.

Blogging can earn you money. I don’t have ads or affiliate links on my blog, but many authors do. I have no idea how lucrative this might be, but if you couldn’t make some cash, nobody would do it!

Of course, blogging requires a certain level of commitment. You don’t need to post every day, but you have to post regularly. Go a week or two without any posts, and readers will lose interest.

Hosting other authors adds some stress. It’s awful to realize that you’ve scuttled a colleague’s tour by forgetting her post, publishing it on the wrong day, or messing up the format.

However, blogging allows more flexible time management than other forms of social media. As long as you plan ahead, you can set up your posts during the days when you have time, and let them do their work for you while you’re busy with other things. Since I’m quite busy Monday through Friday, I usually spend Sunday preparing the week’s posts.

Are there other, more effective ways for me to be spending my scarce marketing time? Maybe. If you know of any, I hope you’ll share! For me, blogging seems the most practical way for me to have a presence in the online world, while still managing the demands of my real world existence.

Jekyll and Hyde

by | December 21, 2019 | | 11 Comments

When I started in this business, more than twenty years ago, I wrote mostly literary erotica. Despite the sometimes extreme sexual situations in my tales, I tried for a sense of realism. My early novels spent a lot of time setting the scene and conveying atmosphere. They offered fairly complicated plots with a myriad of characters. In penning my short stories, I focused on original premises, character development and conflict. Given all the poetry I’d written before I started publishing prose, I guess it’s not surprising that I was very aware of linguistic choices, rhythm and prosody, connotations and allusions.

These days, I still write literary erotica – some of the time. I like to think that my Asian Adventures series, my speculative fiction (The Last Amanuensis, The Antidote) and my paranormal work (Underground, Fourth World) all offer some measure of “redeeming social value”.

Sometimes, though, I have the urge to write pure smut – stories where people get involved in all sorts of outrageous carnal activities, with only the most minimal motivation or conflict. My stroke stories make no pretense of realism. The male characters are capable of astounding numbers of erections. The multi-orgasmic females never get tired or sore. Nobody uses condoms. Nobody gets pregnant.

I offer only the faintest nod to social convention; it’s not at all unusual to find my characters getting it on with one another within five minutes of meeting. In public, even! Also, the people in my more pornographic works are incredibly open-minded, from a sexual perspective. They’re willing to try anything – partner swaps, multiple partners, same-sex encounters (both MM and FF), sex toys, spanking, dominance, submission, gang bangs, pegging, you name it. (Sometimes all in the same story!) To be honest, after writing inside the rigid box of traditional erotic romance, I love their experimental, gender-bending ways.

So I’ll spend a few weeks or months indulging myself, penning some absolutely filthy story that nobody could call “literary” (though I do try for readability and correct grammar). Then I start to feel embarrassed, even guilty. I’m pulled back to write something more traditional, something I wouldn’t be ashamed to show my real world friends (though most of them don’t know Lisabet Sarai exists).

Before long, though, I have get the itch again, the rampant, ungoverned Mr. Hyde of my imagination taking over, forcing the more refined and craft-conscious Dr. Jekyll into the shadows.

For instance, about a month ago, I decided I wanted to publish a holiday story for my fans, most of whom are romance readers. Cherry Pie and Mistletoe was the result, a sweet, hot, painfully realistic tale about the attraction between two sexagenarians.

No sooner had that book hit the virtual shelves, though, then Mr. Hyde reared his head. I got an idea for a stroke story entitled Santa, Baby!, about a nerdy young guy who’s hired by a dominant older woman to play Santa at a very naughty holiday party.

I hope to finish Santa, Baby! this weekend. (I’d better, because Christmas is next week!) But Mr. Hyde keeps pouring out the smut. The story’s already over 10K. I might not even announce it to my usual readers; they might find it too raw. That actually doesn’t seem to matter; my stroke fiction seems to sell much better than my more literary efforts.

Maybe after the book’s out, Mr. Hyde will fade back into the shadows.

But maybe not.

Meanwhile, this dual identity is a major marketing pain. I mean, what’s my brand? Exquisitely crafted, poetic prose that tugs at your emotions? Or wildly over-the-top fucking and sucking?

I’ve heard that readers like consistency. They want to know what to expect when they pick up a book from one of their favorite authors.

With me, you never know. Will it be Jekyll, or Hyde? I guess what I really need is to find the readers who enjoy both my alter-egos.

Ephemeral

by | November 21, 2019 | | 4 Comments

Snowy Day

 A black-and-white photo from my high school years

When we moved from the US to Asia, more than a decade ago, I got rid of at least three quarters of my material possessions. One thing I kept, though, were photographs. We shipped two plastic crates of prints and negatives, plus a box of fancy photo albums where I’d pasted the very best of our travel and party photos, selected to showcase our adventures to others.

Photographs possessed a certain importance, a gravitas, as historical markers. They were artifacts to be preserved and cherished. Family photos adorned the walls in my mother’s and grandmother’s homes, not only of people that I knew, but also of people I’d never met. Our family marked important transitions with group portraits. My archives include the originals of at least two expensive studio shots of me and my siblings, one when I was around seven, the other aged twelve. In addition, my first lover was an amateur photographer, who taught me a bit about his craft. Among the boxes we shipped were envelopes of black and white “art” photos I shot in my junior and senior year in high school with my used Kodak single lens reflex – and developed myself.

Photos were precious then.

How things have changed! Now we all carry cameras in our pockets, and capture images of the most prosaic subjects. We flip through the pictures, allocating a few seconds to each – “sharing” them, deleting them, editing and enhancing them, rarely if ever printing them. Photos have become nothing but electronic data, ephemeral. We keep them on our devices, upload them to social media, and sometimes download them to our hard disk. If we don’t back them up regularly (and how many of us do?) they could all vanish with a single computer crash. Life’s history, gone in an instant. Maybe that doesn’t matter, but it’s quite a contrast to the thick-parchment, colorized, pricey studio photos of my childhood.

Books have followed the same trend. In that move halfway around the world, I also kept a selection of my favorite volumes from my youth. In fact, they’re still sitting on my shelves here, in some cases fifty to sixty years after I acquired them. Many are what I’d consider timeless classics: the complete Sherlock Holmes stories; Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass; Edgar Allen Poe; Shakespeare’s plays. I also have very old versions of books that have been important to me personally, including Anne Rice’s vampire books (a 1975 edition of Interview with the Vampire) and The Story of O.

A book was a magical object, back then. Opening the covers, you entered the gates to another world. This was still true when I published my own first novel, twenty years ago. I held the paperback in my hand – the paperback with my name on the cover! – and marveled that I had joined the illustrious ranks of real authors. Like all writers, I even fantasized about my book becoming a best-seller or a classic.

And now? Books are just bits. I have a box full of author copies I can’t get rid of, including four different versions of that first novel, and a hard disk packed with manuscript files. There are multiple different versions of many tales, published and re-published, tweaked, expanded, reworked. The notion of a book as a finished creation, whole and perfect, has disappeared.

I used to suffer from what I called “narrative inertia”. What I meant was that I found it almost impossible to make significant alterations to a book after I’d written “The End”. My work seemed to resist revision. Almost as if it were solid and real.

I’m past that now. I can slice and dice my books to suit the perceived market. They have no special status, and I have no illusions about their pretensions to longevity.

The notion of a timeless classic being published today almost seems laughable. Fifty years from now – nay, even twenty years – hardware and software will have evolved to the point that ebooks from this era may not even be readable.

Of course, according to Eastern spiritual traditions, change is the only constant. Everything is ephemeral, the universe a construct of our minds and emotions. It’s all Maya, the sparkling, ever-mutating illusion that masks the incomprehensible, eternal nature of God.

(Gee, am I really talking about God on the ERWA blog? Well, why not?)

Perhaps it’s a side-effect of growing old, but these days almost everything seems temporary. News. Crises. Fashions. Celebrities. Technologies. Scandals. The rate of change seems to be constantly increasing. I don’t even bother to pay attention to much of what flashes through my life, or across my screen. It’ll be gone before I can even grasp it.

In fact, one of the less ephemeral phenomena in my life happens to be the Erotica Readers & Writers Association. Next January will mark twenty years that I’ve been part of the ERWA community. (ERWA itself has been in existence for twenty three years! Nearly a quarter century!) There are actually a few people on the email lists whom I’ve known that entire time. I’ve been writing the Erotic Lure newsletter since 2004 – fifteen years. That’s a lot of alliteration under the bridge.

Of course, ERWA has changed. We have new blood – young, talented, energetic writers and editors who help keep things interesting. The feelings, though, remain remarkably constant: warmth, respect for others, a spirit of fun, and of course a lively interest in all things erotic.

It’s pretty amazing that a community that exists only in cyberspace could be so resilient and so real. Our communications are just bits – but they matter. I enjoy closer relationships with some of the friends I’ve made here than with people I know in “meat-space”. Watching the world rush by, buffeted by the winds of change, I am truly grateful for ERWA, a “place” that doesn’t even exist, but where I always feel at home.

Description: Getting It Just Right

by | November 11, 2019 | | 4 Comments

When I sit down to write, I have pictures in my mind. I can see my setting, whether it is an exotic foreign temple, a seedy motel, or a trendy night club. I have some sense of my characters’ physical appearance. I imagine the action as it occurs, playing out like a movie in my mind. Most authors, I believe, have similar mental images.

Part of our task as writers is to communicate all these pictures to our readers. Description is essential in building a fictional world for our readers to inhabit. Description of the setting helps to establish a mood for the story as well as conveying factual information in order to set the scene. Description of a character allows readers to understand who the character is, why he or she reacts in particular ways or evokes desire, hate or fear from other characters. Effective description of action is essential in order to move the story forward along its plot arc.

Some authors might disagree, but I would argue that it’s nearly impossible to write a good story without some description. How much, though, is enough?

A common weakness in the work of novice writers is over-description. A story will begin with four paragraphs of text about the weather, the manor house, or the windswept Scottish moors. A character cannot show up on a page without having some adjectives or adverbs to drag around. A love scene explains in excruciating detail what the hero’s left hand and right hand are doing at each moment.

Why is this a problem? Because too much description can interfere with the progress of the story. Consider the following passage, adapted from a very early story of my own called “The Ambassadors to G79-3”.

She emerged first from stasis, a faint humming in her ears, a strange saltiness in her mouth and a sharp tingling in her secret parts remarkably like sexual excitement. Her eyes gradually focused on the luminous neon scope attached to the curved inner surface of her personal stasis chamber. The temporal-spatial coordinates displayed there were reassuringly familiar. The ship was right on course and the stasis mechanisms had functioned perfectly, awakening her a mere six hours from the destination.

She stretched her long limbs luxuriously, enjoying the soft, gentle pressure of the cushioning foam that lined the chamber. Lyrene fumbled a bit with the mechanical release latch, then swung the port wide and stepped clumsily into the cylindrical control room that formed the heart of their ship. Blue, green and gold lights blinked and flashed as the ship’s advanced biocerebral core rapidly calculated alternative landing trajectories and touch-down coordinates. The viewing dome in the middle of the floor glowed golden from the raging fires of the star G-79. Lyrene deftly flicked a switch, executing an 180 degree turn, and the dome revealed an endless field of deep blue spattered with flecks of silver, and a greenish egg shape hanging near the edge.

This is the start of the story. As any experienced writer will tell you, the first few paragraphs of a story or novel are critical. This is where you must “hook” readers, catch their interest, excite their curiosity, make them want to read on so that they can find out what happens next. In this case, though, I am two hundred words into the tale, and nothing has really happened. If I continue in this vein, I’m going to lose my readers’ attention.

Clearly, I need to set the scene. If I don’t manage to communicate the fact that this is a space ship, then the next paragraphs will not make any sense. However, I can streamline the entire opening, simply by cutting some the adjectives and adverbs, restructuring a few sentences, and omitting details that really are not important.

She emerged first from stasis, a humming in her ears, a saltiness in her mouth and a tingling like sexual excitement in her secret parts. The luminous scope inside her stasis chamber showed temporal-spatial coordinates that were reassuringly familiar. The ship was right on course. The stasis mechanisms had functioned perfectly, awakening her six hours before the scheduled landing.

Lyrene stretched her limbs, stiff after months of immobility, then crawled clumsily through the stasis chamber port into the cylindrical control room. Lights blinked and flashed as the ship’s brain calculated landing trajectories and touch-down coordinates. She requested an 180 degree turn. Instead of the fires of the star G-79, the viewing dome now revealed a field of deep blue spattered with flecks of silver, with a greenish egg shape hanging near the edge.

I have cut the passage by more than seventy five words. More importantly, I have focused the reader’s attention on Lyrene and her actions, instead of on what the ship looks like. One technique for doing this is to remove references to intermediate acts unless they are essential for understanding the scene. In the revised version, I dropped any mention of unfastening the latch or opening the port. Notice, however, that I did not remove the adverb “clumsily”. I felt that this was necessary to convey Lyrene’s physical state after the long space trip.

The passage above is hardly a model for great literature. However, it does set the scene better than the previous example, without holding up the story.

Another hazard in the realm of descriptions is over-describing your characters. Of course you want your readers to be able to visualize your hero and heroine. Leave some space, though, for the reader’s imagination. Sketch your character, highlight the critical aspects of their appearance or personality, but then let the reader’s personal preferences fill in the details.

Here’s another example, once again adapted from some of my unpublished work.

Why did she arouse me so strongly? She didn’t look the least bit tarty. Her beige skirt ended a modest distance below her knees. Her white crepe blouse draped her torso, suggesting rather than revealing the roundness underneath. The V of the neckline exposed the hollow of her throat, where I caught the discrete sparkle of some silvery charm. She had arranged her hair, a warm brown threaded with hints of red, into a neat chignon at the base of her neck. She was probably wearing make up, but it was subtle enough that it merely enhanced the overall impression: a beautiful, business-like young woman with a smile I might be willing to die for.

How tall is this woman? What color are her eyes? How old is she? Is she Caucasian or some other ethnicity? Is she slender or voluptuous? What size bra cup does she wear? Forgive me for the last question, but I have read far too many beginner’s stories where the author apparently viewed this this item of information as essential. ;^)

Each of you, reading this paragraph, will have a somewhat different image of the woman being described. I have not provided any of the above details of her appearance, because they are not important to the story. What is important is the narrator’s impression: that she’s “neat”, “business-like”, “discrete”, “subtle”, “modest”. (As it turns out, this character is not at all what she seems, but rather is a sexually ravenous dominant.)

Lawrence Schimmel, the celebrated gay author, has compared writing to creating a radio play. In the days of radio, the entire family would sit around the “wireless”, listening to comedies or dramas. The voices would evoke different pictures for each listener. The playwright’s job was to suggest, to hint, to guide the imagination.

I don’t have space in this article to consider the question of over-description in action, which can also be a problem. However, I would like to leave you with a few suggestions for improving your descriptions.

1. Make each adjective and adverb count. Some writing gurus advise eliminating all adverbs and most adjectives. I think this is just plain silly. However, before you write about a “blue chair”, consider whether the blueness really matters for your story. Be selective.

2. Avoid starting a story with pure description. There’s a risk that you’ll lose your readers’ attention before you get to the action.

3. Keep the focus on the characters and the events of the plot. Interleave description with action.

4. When in doubt, cut. Don’t hold on to descriptive passages just because they paint a beautiful picture.

In writing, despite what some people may say, there are no hard and fast rules. You need to discover what works for you. Personally, I’ve found that applying the suggestions above help me turn overblown, wordy descriptions into more effective passages that support rather than interfere with the action.

Sexual Self-Delusion

by | October 21, 2019 | | 11 Comments

Hustlers movie poster

Last weekend, I finally saw the film Hustlers. I’m not going to review the movie (though I liked it a lot), as it has already received considerable media attention, partly because of its all female cast and woman director. My topic involves how the film portrays sex, especially male sexuality.

In case you haven’t heard or read about Hustlers, I’ll briefly summarize the plot. Capitalizing on the 2007 Wall Street boom, veteran stripper Ramona, her newbie protegée Destiny, and the other diverse dancers at New York’s Moves strip club are making a great living out off the bankers, stock traders and CEOs out for a night of expensive fun. When the financial crisis of 2008 decimates their former customers’ incomes and leaves the girls struggling, Ramona hatches a scheme to seduce wealthy guys at high end bars, slip them some drugs, drag them back to Moves, and max out their credit cards. The women’s larceny succeeds for a surprisingly long time, but eventually they get caught, and the legal reckoning shreds the close friendship between Ramona and Destiny.

Though the film has been banned in Malaysia and probably censored in other conservative countries, in fact it contains no actual sex acts and very little nudity. (I found it interesting that the one instance of full frontal nudity involved a man, which is pretty rare in American movies.) Indeed, though the strippers are experts at erotic titillation, the club, at least before the Crash, prohibits intimate contact between dancers and customers. Cameras in the private rooms enforce this rule (though there’s a hint that the really high rollers manage to get around this constraint). The strippers’ raunchy moves, lap dances and simulated lesbian routines arouse the customers by suggesting the possibility of sexual intercourse, but in fact that promise is rarely if ever fulfilled. Although the customers are well aware they won’t get laid, that doesn’t seem to matter. They still shell out hundreds of dollars to perpetuate the illusion that they’re going to get lucky and score with one (or more than one) of the voluptuous, scantily clad dancers who tantalize them so effectively.

Our first introduction to Ramona is her stunning pole dance routine, in which she shows off not only her strength and flexibility but also her ass and her crotch. The audience showers her with bills. By the time she finishes (in a provocative full split), the stage is littered with a thick layer of cash. She struts off stage clutching armfuls to her cleavage. “Doesn’t money make you horny?” she asks the stunned and admiring Destiny.

What motivates the men for whom she’s performing to react this way? Complete and utter fantasy. And for the guys who keep the club in business, that’s mostly enough.

When Ramona and company embark on their illegal enterprises, the film sharpens its portrait of men as willing participants in their own sexual self-delusion. The victims of their scam don’t know that the beautiful, expensively-dressed young ladies flirting with them are strippers, at least not initially. The women pass themselves off as wealthy party girls, just looking for a hard cock and a good time. And the target is willing to believe this – eager, in fact. How flattering to think that these gorgeous, fashionable creatures are attracted to him! How exciting that he might be able to take on not just one sexy woman, but three or four!

Ramona and her gang operate for several years, scamming their marks out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why aren’t they caught sooner? The film suggests that the victims were embarrassed to admit they’d been fleeced by a bunch of strippers – but at the same time, there’s a mention of at least one guy who fell into their trap three times.

In short, these hustlers capitalized on the male ego. They weren’t selling sex – only the fantasy of sex.

Is this a realistic portrayal of male sexuality? I can’t comment. However, the movie is based on a true story. It does make one wonder.

And is fantasy enough? After all, that’s what erotica authors offer. Readers buy our books expecting to be aroused. Maybe this translates into better, or more, real world sex for them. Or maybe it’s a substitute.

This line of inquiry does make me a bit uncomfortable. Despite my personal slogan – Imagination is the ultimate aphrodisiac – I am a big fan of actual sexual activity. I’d like to think my stories enhance rather than replace sex.

Sex is political. Hustlers is definitely a political movie, with a well-defined perspective that I, at least would consider feminist. How seriously should I take the premise that men will do almost anything if you simply dangle the possibility of sex in front of their faces?

Guys – what do you think?

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Hot Chilli Erotica

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