Do you love your characters? . . .and . . . Announcing two brand new books from TAS

What should a writer’s attitude be towards his or her characters? Ernest Hemmingway once said, “When writing a novel, a writer should create living people; people, not characters. A character is a caricature.” I would agree, and add that believable, relatable living people will always be more than a writer’s playthings; more than faceless game-pieces to be moved about at authorial whim without respect to logic or credible emotion. A good writer seldom says “I created these fictions; I can do whatever the heck I want with them.” The best characters are endowed with free will, and the capacity to disappoint their creator. And yet, a wise creator lives to be surprised.

Do you respect—even love—your characters? As opposed to putting words in their mouths for the sake of plot-utility, do you give them the time to find their own unique voices—their own hidden depths and personal conundrums, out of which interesting plot is created? Can you write about the sort of person you despise without turning that character into a one-sided propaganda-poster-child? Can you discern the spark of good deep within a villain’s heart, or the creeping darkness in the soul of a saint? Do you allow yourself to be delighted by what your characters come up with, seemingly on their own, the things they may do or say without your say; things you might never have imagined for them at the beginning? How real do they become to you?

I take a long time to write, and so, spend a lot of time getting to know my characters. Being so close to them over months and years, I have the pleasure—sometimes the horror—of watching them evolve, often from nameless embryonic stock-entities occupying scenes for no particularly good reason, to fully developed, interesting, multi-faceted leading men and women, with whom I develop deep empathy and affection. I’m not sure, yet, if I’ve ever written a heroine with whom I haven’t fallen in love, at least for a little while. My male characters can sometimes be disagreeable, annoying, venial little wankers, but I am that rare friend who sees their other side, knows that there’s something more beyond the unpleasant surface, and am still willing to hang out with them. Even monsters have mommies who love them, after all. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I write and develop my characters, as this week occasions the release of not one, but two new stories with strong—and, I hope, memorable—central actors. Summer of ’69 is a mainstream literary coming-of-age narrative. Muse in the Neon Twilight is a short piece of literary erotica. Characters in both stories trace their roots back to my first novel (now withdrawn).  

Summer of ’69 began life as a simple erotic coming of age tale, little more than a couple perfunctory scenes about a sixteen-year-old boy and an older woman. But as time passed, I began to see that there was a good deal more depth and possibility to this story. Nate, the protagonist-narrator, isn’t simply another horny teenaged lad lusting after his spacey, flower-child “aunt”. It came to me one day that Nate once had a serious speech impediment, a stutter that isolated him from others, even members of his own family. In spite of the trouble he once had articulating his thoughts Nate is genuinely bright, introspective and funny. I also came to see that he cared about someone other than himself and his own agonizingly unrequited sexual desires. His older sister, Valerie, was, he tells us as he looks back on his youth, “the closest thing I had to a best friend,” and when she gets herself into trouble, Nate must find a way to rescue her, regardless of the difficulty. The rather unimaginative, too-too-conventional original plot took on more and more depth and complexity as I found more and more obstacles for Nate to overcome, based on the simple logical give-and-take of these characters, their desires, and motives, and the way they interact with each other. I have come to love this story and its characters, and I hope open-minded readers will discover it and love it as well.

Muse in the Neon Twilight is a very different, but no-less character-driven story. Ostensibly a simple, straightforward seduction narrative; man meets beautiful, young college student in bar, buys her a few drinks, and listens to her complain about a flagging long-distance relationship. The coed talks herself into going home with the man as a way of making her boyfriend jealous, and so on and so forth. It’s not so much the plot (such as it is) that makes this story interesting; it’s the way the characters talk to each other. I wanted to tell this tale as much as possible through smart, interesting, believable dialog. Doc, the male lead, is a hyper-articulate college professor, an unregenerate horndog, and a dwarf, repulsive and charming at the same time. Beauty to Doc’s beast, Julia is neither bimbo nor pushover, and has no intention of getting caught in the little man’s convoluted web of words. Yet, Doc counts on Julia's undisguised revulsion and dislike—her abject hate—to keep her off guard.    

I’m not sure I could ever write a genuinely stupid or unintelligent character. Though they may not always be likeable, or dazzlingly articulate, there’s always something reasonably interesting going on in their heads. Doc just happens to express more of his thoughts in fifteen minutes than most people do in a lifetime. I have to admit that when the man first came into my imagination about ten years ago, he simply would not shut up. Even when I tried to sleep at night, Doc was there, constantly talking his talk, filling my head with his odd ideas and endless stories of sexual conquest. I could probably write a series of short erotic novels based solely on his self-vaunted exploits, though I have no idea where this character came from. I’ve never met anyone like him—few flesh-and-blood people have ever fascinated or annoyed me quite so much. Still, I have come to enjoy the little guy’s company, and find difficult the prospect of letting him go once and for all. Eventually, I may give him his own collection of short stories, or the occasional cameo appearance in other works.

 

Finally, a personal request. Feedback is essential to the creative process. Indifference is death itself. If you buy or borrow these stories, if you like them, if you hate them; if you think I’m a genius or a hack, an artist or just another common garden-variety purveyor of dreckish vulgarity, a pornographer or a pedant, don’t hesitate to let me know what you think one way or the other. Reviews, whether positive, negative, glowing, scathing, warmly encouraging or coldly critical are always welcome and appreciated. Those of us who write erotica or fiction with strong erotic content are well aware of the need for some intelligent notice and affirmation--that, after all, is why I started this blog in the first place.  

 TAS

Review of Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey

It’s probably no secret to anyone who visits this site on a regular basis; I loathe Fifty Shades of Grey. In fact, loathe may be too weak a word for what I feel about E.L. James’ mega-best-selling trilogy. I did not reach this conclusion casually. Unlike Sam I Am, I really did make an effort to at least try the green eggs and ham. In the end, though, I found them not merely wanting, but indigestible. The awful writing has already become the stuff of legend, the inspiration for broad parody and snarky parlor games, as well as the sort of website one visits in need of a good laugh after a hard day’s work. My objections are deeper and more serious. I am a lifelong sex-positive feminist, my consciousness having been awakened in the early 1980s by reading Dr. Sheila Kittzinger’s Women’s Experience of Sex, and more recently, the work of Susie Bright. I believe passionately in equality, in sensitivity, in listening, in empathy, in gentleness and quietude. I have always aspired to relationships of strong, intelligent equals. In literature as in life, I most admire female characters who are smart and resilient, from the plucky pioneer women in the novels of Louis L’Amour (Westward the Trail and Hondo), to the irrepressible free spirited, independent young women in the YA novels of Phillip Pullman (His Dark Materials trilogy) and Madeline L’Engle (A Wrinkle in Time series) and the animated masterpieces of   Hiyou Miazaki (Princess Mononoke, Porco Rosso, Howl’s Moving Castle, Kiki’s Delivery Service to name only a few). I despise James’ portrayal of Anastasia as a shallow, naïve, airheaded pushover. That she would allow herself to get anywhere near a sick control freak like Christian Grey, let alone fall under his spell, is, to me, bewildering if not downright disgusting. These books sell a fantasy in which codependance, sadism and psychopathy are equated with romance. Such a relationship in real-life would be nothing more than a recipe for perpetual misery, dysfunction and abuse. As far as I am concerned, the sooner this vile phenomenon passes from the cultural scene, the better.     

TAS

 

FiftyWriters on Fifty Shades of Grey


My attitude towards E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey is much the same as my attitude towards sports. I am not now nor have I ever been a sports fan. But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the idea of sports, or many of the fascinating universally human stories that swirl around it. What an amazing, endlessly intriguing catalog of aspiration, endeavor and corruption, vice and nobility, folly and foible. Sports as an idea, and the issues it engenders, have inspired some of the most lyrical, insightful, funny and entertaining writing ever to be found, even if the games and players, fans and followers they describe are often venial, childish, banal, boring, and forgettable. I would far rather read Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, or watch Bull Durham for the twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth time than ever sit through one of the real-life games that inspired them.    

So it is with Fifty Shades. The execrable writing, the shallow, jejune characterizations, the idiotic pop-psychology, the ignorant misrepresentations of BDSM, it’s the literary equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard. But even as much as I despise—even hate—these books, I am interested in the ideas they have inspired. While the writing in Fifty Shades is simply too awful to ever get past the vetting process for inclusion on this site—notwithstanding the books’ enormous popularity—I must admit that the trilogy has inspired a good deal of highly intelligent discourse, and this superb, engaging collection of essays, Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey, offers a rich banquet of food for thought, some exceptionally fine, palate-cleansing writing, and many hours of reading pleasure.

To be honest, I have to say that some of my enjoyment was rooted in Schadenfreude. I most relished those pieces that supported or reinforced my own prejudices—the ones that put James and her trio of best-sellers down the hardest. And yet, I found a great deal of intellectual stimulation and even inspiration in many of the “pro-FSG” essays. There is a broad range of point-of-view, opinion, and style represented here, from scholarly monograph and high-brow criticism, to unapologetically treacley fan-girl fawning, and gossamer adulatory fluff. Fortunately, most writers have staked out an agreeably literate middle ground.

What all the contributors here seem to agree on is that Fifty Shades has become a “game changer” both for publishers and readers, though what this contagious little meme actually conveys is not always clear. In her introduction, Fifty Ways to Look at Fifty Shades, editor Lori Perkins refers positively to the trilogy, going so far as to gush, “I am awed to see the birth of a new erotic classic”, and hope “. . . that these books will usher in a publishing tidal wave of female-centered commercially successful erotica, giving women a new voice for sexual, political and financial choices.” In her essay, Fifty Shades of Change, Louise Fury claims that “. . . what The Vagina Monologues did for women and their vaginas, Fifty Shades has done for women and smut.” In a piece appropriately enough entitled The Game Changer, M. Christian seems reluctantly to agree, though he laments, “It would just be nice that the paradigm shift in literature and publishing would have been better written.”  He goes on to say;

It’s still a total and complete game changer. For one thing, it’s pretty much the final nail in the old school old school world of print publishing. Sure, that model has been gasping and wheezing for a few years now, but for a teeny weeny and badly written book to do what New York dreamt of doing shows once and for all that they need to burn down their old ways and finally begin to embrace the lean, mean, and cutting edge world of e-books.

It’s also another shovel of dirt on another corpse; the concept of old-school marketing. Fifty Shades didn’t succeed because of its brilliant prose, it’s immense advertising budget, or inspired publicity. It scored that coveted number one spot because “mom” E.L. James jumped right in, feetfirst, to social networking and viral marketing with a dogged persistence that’s, frankly, a bit scary. The only bad side of this is—sigh—that for the next five to ten years we’re gonna be bombarded not just with Fifty Shades knock-offs, but all those authors trying the same tricks James did.”     

“Some have wondered how a “classic” can be so “poorly written,” Perkins muses, “But I contend that it is not poorly written, but rather written in an everywoman’s voice, a necessary part of its success.”

This seems just a tad disingenuous, I wonder if a successful literary agent like Perkins would be so forgiving of James’ appallingly amateurish writing had the books not sold over 70 million copies. If something so poorly written—and I contend that it IS poorly written—by an unknown were to land on her desk, would Perkins be so quick to offer excuses for it—let alone anything other than a form rejection? Somehow, I don’t think so. Later in the collection, readers are treated to an apologia from no less a figure than Tish Beaty, the editor of Fifty Shades of Grey herself. Her “excuse” is that James’ already-established and rabidly protective cadre of fans demanded that no serious alterations be made to the self-published original. Beaty was, thus “under orders” from her publisher to treat James and her manuscript with kid gloves. So much for artistic and professional integrity.

The question of what Fifty Shades is and isn’t—softcore porn, “mommy porn”, "smut for women", BDSM erotica, erotic romance—is the basis for several of the collection’s most interesting and insightful essays. D.L. King’s Is Fifty Shades Erotica? Ask an Erotic Writer is particularly illuminating. While generally liking the trilogy—“. . . I had fun with Fifty Shades,” she says, “Anna’s annoying; she’s a little too naïve to be believable, but she’s patterned after Bella in the Twilight books. . .”—King readily acknowledges the books’ most serious flaws: “It’s two main problems . . . lay with a poorly drawn main character, and poor editing.”

“(Many) readers, critics, fans of romance—even erotic romance—see nothing but sex in the trilogy”, but, as King suggests;  

“Is it erotica? I say no. I say the Fifty Shades books are erotic romance, and there is a definite difference.

Because there’s sex on every page (actually there isn’t. There’s sex on the vast majority of pages) and because Christian and Anastasia fuck like bunnies, the books have been billed as erotica. But whether erotic romance authors, editors and publishers wish to admit it or not, it isn’t the amount of explicit sex that makes a book romance or erotica; it’s the plotline and the happily-ever-after contrivance.”

“Erotica . . . is more about the sex than the undying love. That doesn’t mean that there can’t be undying love in an erotic novel, it just means the undying love isn’t the reason for the story’s existence, as it is in a romance. In erotica the sex is the reason for the story’s existence . . .”

“Here’s a little secret about the difference between erotica and erotic romance: you can take the sex out of an erotic romance and the story will survive just fine (although it won’t be nearly as much fun to read), but you can’t take the sex out of erotica. If you do, you’ll be left with nothing to hold the story together.”   

Other essays trace the books’ literary antecedents through Twilight-based fanfic to the novels of Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters. (This is something I had not considered before.) In this context, the protagonist, Christian Grey, becomes the literary heir to Heathcliff and Mr. Rochester, as Jennifer Sanzo argues in The Byronic Hero Archetype and Christian Grey: Why America’s Favorite Sadist is Nothing New. Sarah S.G. Frantz: A History of BDSM Fiction and Romance is one of the five or six essays here, which are, alone, worth the price of the entire book, and Andrew Shaffer’s Fifty Shades of Grace Metalious draws intriguing parallels between the author of Petyon Place and the furor surrounding that book in the 1950s, with some of the contemporary reactions to James and her trilogy.

Also of great interest are the viewpoints of therapists, healing professionals, and real-life BDSM practitioners. Hope Tarr’s eye-opening piece, Because Love Hurts and Debra Hyde’s Wanted Fifty Shades of Sexual Wholeness offer healthy doses of realism to counterbalance what is, at root, a twisted fantasy. Grey may well be a twenty-first century incarnation of the Byronic hero, but he is also clearly a sociopath, a control freak, and a self-absorbed, abusive monster, which no self-respecting woman would ever truly want to get near. Lawyer Sherri Donovan explores the books’ now-infamous (and never-signed) contract in The Legal Bonding of Anastasia and Christian; and experienced lifestylers Master R (A Requested Evaluation of the Mastery of Christian Grey) as well as Chris Marks and Lia Leto (A BDSM Couple’s View) explore the deeper, real-world ramifications of a mature, healthy power exchange relationship.

A pleasant and most welcome surprise is the inclusion of several short pieces of fiction in the book; Judith Regan’s Fifty Shades of Play, which very cleverly explodes the Alpha Male mythos with a masterful twist at the end, and Laura Antoniou’s delightful, hilarious send-up of the trilogy, Fifty Shades of Holy Crap. As to be expected, Antoniou’s skewering of James is fast-paced and razor-sharp, laugh-out-loud and utterly brilliant. It may be one good reason this collection will stay on e-readers and bookshelves for years to come—perhaps long after the whole Fifty Shades phenomenon has passed into blessed oblivion.  

In spite of my near-visceral dislike of the source material, I can (and do) enthusiastically recommend Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey.

You keep using that word . . .

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

(Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride)

 

In my extensive reading of erotic fiction, either as a Beta reader or as a reviewer, I come across a lot of troubling—or at least moderately bothersome—issues. Anyone listening to me while I read would hear lots of grunts, gasps, sighs, moans and curses, mostly of the tired, jaded, incredulous variety, frequency determined by the quality of the book in hand. Here are a few of the things that have bugged and annoyed me most in recent months.  

CRESCENDO versus CLIMAX. Originally a musical term, literally (and simply) meaning “getting louder” in Italian, CRESCENDO has been coopted, confused, and abused by so many writers of pretentiously awful fiction (and not just erotica), that it’s probably best to avoid the term altogether. The verb “to crescendo” is too often confused with the noun “climax” as in, They built up to a roaring crescendo. But crescendo is not the final destination, it is a description of the journey, as in, Their passion rose in a long, slow crescendo, culminating in a roaring climax, or Her cries crescendoed as her lover pushed her towards the brink. A crescendo is a loudening, an intensification, a rising; it is not an explosion or the grand finale itself. As always, use unusual or fancy words sparingly and with keen awareness of precise definition, the better not to be thought of as a pompous ass or a hack.

PRE-COME: While The Erotic Writer’s Thesaurus is not intended as a textbook on human physiology or anatomy, there are far too many writers who do not seem to understand the nature or natural behavior of pre-come (or pre-cum). This problem is especially prevalent among female writers, perhaps either because they do not themselves own a penis, or have easy access to one for purposes of reference and research. The term refers to those small droplets of fluid that form on the tip of an erect penis during the initial stage of arousal, usually slowly oozing out of the urethra, often so subtly as at first to be unnoticed. Not quite the same thing as COME (or CUM), its behavior is very different; pre-come seldom if ever spurts out or gushes forth, and almost never arrives in sufficient quantity to dampen anything more than the GLANS, though, over time, enough may build up to lubricate the entire shaft. Pre-come itself does not make a particularly effective or long-lasting lubricant, as it can quickly become sticky or tacky. Writers need to take such physiological niceties into account if they themselves wish to be taken seriously. Of course, it doesn’t help that there are almost no serviceable synonyms for PRE-COME, other than the subtly euphemistic or vaguely poetic (harbinger), or the downright clinical (“first inklings of arousal”, "droplets" or “fluid”).

And while we’re on the subject . . .

COME versus CUM (again): We’ve spoken before about the distinction between COME and CUM. My simple rule of thumb is that CUM should only be employed as a noun. Still, I see a lot of writers—even some otherwise pretty good ones—who use CUM as both noun and verb, either because they think the simpler spelling has a more transgressive, gritty or vulgar feel to it, or because they honestly haven’t thought about the distinction. Ask yourself this next time the issue arises; what is the past tense of CUM? Stumped? The word has no past tense precisely because it is a noun!

Coming next week (no pun intended): review of Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey

TAS

Review of "Extraordinary Deviations" by Raven Kaldera

The most imaginative fiction often defies easy classification, and this strange, eclectic, dazzling, haunting, weirdly lyrical, sometimes disturbing collection of short stories must certainly be among the most imaginative and original books to appear in recent memory. Challenging at every level, intellectually engaging and consistently diverting, Raven Kaldera’s Extraordinary Deviations stubbornly defies convention as well as any casual attempt to pigeonhole its contents.  

So, in which corner of a circular reading room would you put Extraordinary Deviations? Would it be shelved under High Fantasy, sci-fi or erotica? Historical? Paranormal? Horror? Neo-paganism? Genderqueer? It’s the kind of exercise that would drive an obsessive compulsive pedant mad. But sanity seems a small price to pay for the thrill of discovery, the pure narcotic rush of sudden illumination and deep insight to be found here. These eight well-crafted short stories bend genre and gender with equal virtuosity, running a sublimely eclectic gamut of mood and voice, time, place and theme, drawing on everything from ancient Greek and Norse mythologies to the far-futuristic limits of speculative fiction, virtual reality and quantum theory, which, in the end, seem an awful lot like magic. In some ways, this suggests a kind of closed circle; the same forces which have been at work since the beginning of time have not gone away, but are simply known by other names, manifested in new, more relatably-sophisticated guises and forms for each successive eon.  

Kaldera revels in the divine fluidity of gender. (If there is a unifying theme in the collection, this is probably it.) The gods may take whichever form they choose, after all. Theophany has almost always been portrayed as a very private, intimate phenomenon, whether it’s the constant horny-god-on-cute-mortal bed-hopping in the Theogony of Hesiod, Zeus impregnating Danäe in a mystical shower of gold, Odin seducing the maiden Gunnlöo to obtain the Mead of Poetry, or the angel-like nephilim referenced in the sixth chapter of Genesis, mating with the daughters of mortal men (a myth masterfully explored in Madeline L’Engle’s 1986 YA novel, Many Waters), the gods (and god-like) have always been a busy lot, though their trysts aren’t always purely celebratory. More often than not, these encounters come with a hard lesson, an insight into the nature of humanity and the divine itself. Kaldera picks up the thread of this tradition in his opening story, Only Fate, which transposes the ancient theophany narrative into the realm of dystopian-future sci-fi. And again in Lover of the Whore of Babylon, a mysterious god-like entity temporarily possesses human bodies to gratify the narrator and its own BDSM fantasies:

 

Whatever it is that walks in her flesh is big, bigger than her, a small, crop-haired butch. It seems to tower over me. He or she? I can’t tell. I can only stare, mesmerized, pinned like a butterfly on a paper . . . “I’m going to take you now,” says the Presence riding Devi’s form. The voice is deep, hollow, caressing in an overly familiar way that would make me bridle if it came from a human being. He—at least I think it may be a he—squats over my face, opens my mouth with a pinch at the sides of my jaw that makes me squawk in frightened indignation, and cuts off my squawk with a single thrust of that rubber cock inside my mouth . . .

 

That’s the thing about bottoming to an immortal, I suppose. They never run out of shapes. At least with him it’s not swans and showers of gold. Just my kind of lovers . . . his children. His beautiful children. Be careful when you look them in the eye, when you mock them. Any of them could be Him, staring out at you . . . and then you’ll never be the same again.

 

In Opening, Kaldera vividly imagines an alternate fantasy-verse constructed from Norse shamanic ritual, with a magical genderqueer twist. This is one of the most effective tales in the collection, along with (my personal favorite), Gallae, set in the frontier region of Dicia in the ancient Roman Empire, a richly researched and satisfying historical narrative, sometimes disturbing in its graphic descriptions, but powerful and deeply satisfying in its execution and resolution. Kaldera does not turn away from ugliness or blink at imagined deformities, as, indeed, he does not shy away from the honest appraisal of life in all its profound connectedness, its glittering splendors as well as its pain and filth. But with what captivating lyricism he portrays it:      

 

I whip him until he is a mass of welts, until his tattoos stand out like repousse work on an ancient stucco wall, painted with the delicate trickles of blood from the barbed wire. The stigmata of sacred perversion, all over.  

 

The author proves equally adept at punk-inflected sci-fi with a tinge of terror (Thief of Dreams), neat erotic horror-thriller (Jack-a-Roe), High Fantasy (One Hundred and Twenty Two Petals), and even humorous, graphic novel super-hero parody (Bridge Over Shifters Chasm), each with a unique perspective on gender and the nature of intimacy. This is virtuoso storytelling, short literary erotica at its best; pure mind-expanding pleasure, transcending genre. Enthusiastically recommended!

Review of "The Killer Wore Leather" by Laura Antoniou

The Killer Wore Leather is the kind of book that makes my job so much more difficult. A critic wants something to criticize, after all. But here, alas, I cannot find a nit to pick, and with no glaringly obvious flaws to target, three quarters of my juiciest potential vocabulary goes begging; that vast, delightful repertory of tin-god invective, hoity-toity hyperbole, bald-faced condescension and snot-nosed snark that makes a reviewer’s life worth living. I can’t use any of it! At this rate my vitriol’s going to dry up and spoil on the shelf.

 

Oh, come to think of it, I do have one eentsy complaint about The Killer Wore Leather; it ends. (Sincerest apologies for the spoiler.) The book’s 402 pages (or their electronic equivalent) breeze by with such engaging alacrity, that I found myself in the mild throes of literary postpartum let-down when it was over—surest symptom of an enjoyable read if there ever was one. To be sure, I could have lingered quite happily in Antoniou’s world for another thousand pages—easy!—danced all night and still have stayed for more. The ending itself is perfectly satisfying given what comes before; a murder is committed, investigated and solved just as in countless other genre outings, but the proceedings here are described with so much panache, observed so astutely, with such sympathetic realism and detail, good humor, and—dare one say it?—love, that we’re left wanting more of these subtly-drawn characters and their intriguing interactions.

 

The Killer Wore Leather coopts the staid convention of the cozy mystery, and turns it on its head, not merely updating the genre to the age of Twitter and Facebook, but brilliantly transmogrifying it to the realm of contemporary cosplay and kink. Of course, masked balls and costume parties have been a traditional mainstay of cozy mystery for more than a century, though seldom fielding the kind of huge, diverse, colorful ensemble-cast Antoniou directs with such seeming effortlessness here. (The only thing coming close in recent decades might be Margaret Frazer’s 1987 who-done-it, Murder at the War (published by St. Martin’s under the pseudonym Mary Monica Pulver), which features a Cecil B. DeMille-sized cast in medieval garb at the Society for Creative Anachronism’s big real-life annual gathering in Pennsylvania.)  Antoniou sets her story at a weekend confab of leather-lifestyle enthusiasts, some 3,000 costumed kinksters crowded into a downtown New York City hotel for the annual Mr. and Mrs. Global Leather (and Bootblack) competition. When a previous title-holder is found dead in his suite, there’s more than enough motive to go around—everybody, it seems, hated the guy—and more suspicious black leather accessories taken into evidence than forensics can possibly analyze before the conventioneers, including potential suspects, head for home on Monday. So, there’s a race against time, bringing its own built-in element of suspense; thousands of possible disguises with a would-be red herring in leather, latex, rubber or fur behind each one, and the bewildering vagaries of personal and organizational politics, virtually impenetrable to an outsider. It’s an absolutely ingenious premise for a police procedural, and Antoniou follows through on this set-up with dazzling deftness, never missing a beat or a nuance, never once letting the reader down.   

 

Anybody who’s ever dabbled in cosplay or been involved in one of those broad, ever-evolving shared-special-interest groups, clubs or organizations, will immediately recognize some of these characters; the long-suffering event organizer, trying to put on a good show along with a pleasant face for every needy, self-centered whiner no matter how trivial their demands; the bossy, slightly overweight, non-fool-suffering, hyper-efficient head-volunteer who dreams, in her rare off moments, of being dominated by just the right guy; the clueless PC do-gooder, always advocating for some new imagined minority, whether they want her to or not; the dignified and deeply-respected grand dame who becomes a major bitch behind closed doors; the catty, perpetually bemused “I’m so above all this” intellectual-snob-cum-petty-minded sniper; the ever-petulant “I could do a better job than him or her” malcontents; the lost souls and broken outsiders with no other place to hang out; the quietly perceptive, if often invisible, volunteers (in this case. a pair of ultra-hip gender-bending Dromeos, the gofers Boy Jack and Boi Jack), with continually streaming color commentary on whatever’s going on; the mostly nameless, faceless servants and service people, who see everything and only need to be asked to reveal the most mind-blowing of secrets. Antoniou has their numbers and writes them all to a tee; the cadres and cliques; us-versus-them staid traditionalists versus boat-rocking upstart newcomers; snobs and slobs; pompous roll-playing blowhards a bit too into their personae for their own good, or anyone else’s; the junior-league Machiavelli wannabes, and all the shifting alliances, resentments, personal vendettas and concomitant motives, means and opportunities for murder that make an extraordinary mystery into a compelling, irresistible page-turner.

 

Lots of writers have a good eye for character and a sound ear for dialog; but Antoniou has a way of capturing the subtle nuances of ordinary human behavior without calling undue attention to herself or her process, clearly understanding Heisenberg’s principal that the very act of observation changes the thing being observed. This is what an effective homicide detective, like Antoniou’s Laura Feldblum, must understand as well; a question, posed too soon, too late, or left unasked altogether, may irrevocably alter the dynamic of an entire investigation. Journalists are often excused their carelessness:

 

DOM, SUB, SLAVE, PUPPY, SWITCH, ALPHA, PRIMARY, BOY or boi, master, mistress or sir and ma’am, top and bottom, 24/7, twink, tourist, Zodian, polyamorous, lifestyler, leather, latex, gear, cyberpunk, steampunk, uniform, vampire, furry . . .

 

Nancy Nichols hadn’t had such an extensive vocabulary list since the fourth grade. Arriving bright and early to discover the fallout from the meet and greet debacle, she was armed with a scene guide she’d discovered online, scrolling through the wonderful cheat sheet on her smart phone. She hadn’t bothered to do much research on the leather community before—who had the time for real work on a turkey-ass story like this one? But now that it seemed full of filler pieces she could spread out long past the actual event, it was worth it to get a grip on the lingo. She already had outlines for three lifestyle pieces, and the bones of her big story on the event itself.

 

Nancy also had joined Kinkynet; she’d picked the screen name TELLMEKINKYSTORIES after she found out there were no less than eighty MISTRESSNANCY and LADYNANCY accounts already registered. The chat boards there had been full of outraged and delighted recounts of the Mack Steel outburst, many seeming to be from people who were not actually present.

 

 

Including the journalist as well as the detectives in the cast allows the reader to explore ideas, at once essential to the plot, but potentially overwhelming to the uninitiated. It would have been all-too-easy for the author to turn a story like this into an apologia for Kink, a piece of propaganda posing as documentary or some sort of rambling encyclopedic data-dump. True, many of the characters here are willing and eager to talk about their lifestyle and cast it in the most positive of possible lights; but Antoniou skillfully avoids the too-common pitfall of preachy-ness. She does not patronize the outsider or shame him for merely asking an innocent question. Nor do the characters shy away from criticism or complaint. (In other words, they talk and act, live, love, hate, enthuse and effuse, bitch and moan exactly like real people.) Antoniou clearly loves some of these characters; certainly respects many of them, enough to make even a few of the minor players more than mere stage dressing:

 

“Would the honored free woman like to know why this slave lives this way?” she said lightly. When the folds had been arranged to her liking, she crossed her legs and said, “Because this one is happy to explain.”
 
“Yeah, cool, let her explain,” Blade said, nodding.
 
Jazz shrugged, and phyl’ta bowed her head for a moment. When she looked back up, the aspect of simple, smiling passivity was gone from her face.

“I’ll tell you why I do it,” she said, no longer keeping her voice in the upper registers. Several eyes widened at the change in her tone and style of speaking. “And you know what? I don’t care if that old . . . lesbian wrote it for a joke or protest or whatever. Because I’m not doing it for her, and I’m not doing it for any of you, and I sure am not doing it ‘cause I think it’s some mystical, magical truth.”

“Whoa,” Kelly exclaimed. “Okay?”
 
“Look, I grew up in L.A.,” phyl’ta said, “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be short and fat in the land of tall and skinny? To burn like a potato chip in the shade when everyone else is tan? To be told over and over my whole life how ugly I am and how sad it must be to be me?”
 
“You’re not ugly!” Kevin McDonald said.
 
“Maybe not to you—and not in the BDSM scene! I didn’t feel pretty until the first time I got all dressed up in a fancy corset and stockings because my first master bought them for me.” She sniffed a little. “I mean, not that he was much of a master, but I liked him and he thought I was hot because I was a damn sexy submissive; I love getting beaten and caned and tied up and used really hard! He loved me because I was hot to him, all of me, and he didn’t even have to say things, like I was sexy despite being fat, like some guys do.”

Angelina nodded. “Yeah, well, the scene is more welcoming to lots of body types.”
 
“So fine, I could get laid, I could get played with. But I’m an old-fashioned girl! I like the idea of being a stay-at-home mom. I want a man who thinks he’s my champion and my hero, who wants to take care of me. I want a man who responds to me when I want him, and someone who I can read, too.

“And you know what? My man likes the Zod books. Big fucking deal! He could like Star Trek or football or some stupid game online, but he likes Zod stuff. And when I talk this way and dress like this and say certain things and kneel a certain way, guess what? He goes crazy wanting me! He thinks I’m the hottest thing walking! It makes him happy and proud, and it makes him feel like he’s a stud, too.” She grinned suddenly, “Know why I do this? Because last night while the rest of the Zodians were getting all upset in the dungeons, we were back in our room getting it on. Because last night, I came six times! Six! Because he thinks it’s his duty as a Zodian master to make me ‘weak in the love furs,’ and so he figures that means getting me off so much I have to beg him to stop.

“So, if getting that from Phil means dressing up like this once in a while, and doing a hoochie-coochie dance, and talking like I’m retarded, guess what? That sure isn’t much different from wearing high heels and miniskirts and a ton of makeup, and pretending to care who wins the Super Bowl or the World Series, and millions of women do that. And because I go along with it, and let me be clear, I am perfectly happy to, Phil will be happy when I get pregnant and quite my job and we settle down together the way I always wanted. Because he’s not just my boyfriend, he’s my fiancé. So, yeah, that’s why I do it. The lifestyle I want, the man I love, and a ton of screaming, sweaty, panting, Oh-my-God-it-hurts-so-good orgasms.”

 

Laura Antoniou’s The Killer Wore Leather is enthusiastically—ardently!—recommended. This review has only scratched the barest surface of all the things that make it one of the most memorable and enjoyable reading experiences of the year. A book to be read, re-read and read again with ever-increasing pleasure. (And, as of this writing it’s understood a sequel may be in the works, too. I, for one, can hardly wait, even if it does end up making my job that much more difficult!)

Notes from The Erotic Writer's Thesaurus, and more

I’ve been concentrating on my own fiction lately, working to complete a new collection of short stories and an additional long-ish stand-alone story (Summer of ’69) with an eye towards publication sometime this fall. Of course, this doesn't mean I've gone cold turkey on reading other people's books or making notes for future reviews. We'll be looking at some exceptionally fine, exciting titles over the next several months here on EFTBB; see below (*) for a list of upcoming notices.
 

My lastest title, Mr.Friday’s Midlife Crisis was published in November of 2012, and something had been bugging me about it for a while. There were some issues with “head-hopping” in a few of the scenes. I was aware, however vaguely, that this was a flaw in the story, but wasn’t convinced it was a fatal flaw, nor was I quite sure of how to go about fixing it without radically reworking the whole thing. And yet, though I had more or less resolved to forget about it and move on, the question continued to gnaw at me. Then I came across this piece by Remittance Girl, one of the most intelligent, astute, and incisive writers and critics on the contemporary erotica scene. Needless to say, after hanging my head for a seemly period of contrition, I’ve made some changes to the story, and the revised version is available now. I suppose the “moral” of this tale is, ‘always get somebody to beta read for you.’ As RG points out in her article, “head-hopping” is something most writers simply do not notice in their own work. Having a second pair of eyes on a manuscript can potentially save scads of time and trouble, not to mention an eternity of abject embarrassment.  

NOTES ON USAGE FROM THE EROTIC WRITER'S THESAURUS

When it comes to issues of usage and style, I have some seriously gnarly pet peeves; probably enough to start a peeve-petting zoo, or, at least, a peevish-flea circus. For instance, I absolutely hate the word “breakfasted”; so insufferably twee, so pinkies-out namby-pamby. Yuck! I’d prefer “they ate breakfast,” “they broke their fast” or even (albeit holding my nose) “they partook of a fine breakfast”. I despise phrases that include the words “. . . like nothing she had ever known before . . .” or “. . . more intense than anything he had ever experienced.” But hey! That’s just me.

There are lots of usage questions specific to erotica, and it’s highly unlikely one will find the answers to them in Fowler’s Modern English Usage or The Chicago Manual of Style—handy and great as those references are. I love dipping into Fowler from time to time, if for no other reason than to be entertained by the editor’s wonderful, inimitably pugnacious pronouncements on the practice of good English. (Granted, I have yet to internalize the wise old curmudgeon’s notion that “the essence of good English lies in the use of short words.”) But Fowler's not much help when it comes to, say, knowing the difference between areola and aureole, or understanding the distinction between come and cum.  One of the things I hope will make my Erotic Writer’s Thesaurus a more valuable resource to the community is the inclusion of notes on many of these erotica-specific usage issues.

In its current form, The Erotic Writer’s Thesaurus (see its page for today’s major update) has a few drawbacks. Among other things, it’s difficult—especially when attempting to do regular updates—to include clickable internal navigation on the website.  Eventually, I hope to make this reference available as a very-reasonably priced e-book with searchability and full internal navigation. If I can figure out how to make the e-book updatable, I will. (Informed advice on this is welcome.) The usage notes will probably be organized into their own section, separate from the synonym lists. The notes do represent my own opinions. I recognize that reasonable people may disagree, though I hope we can all remain agreeable in the process. Questions, comments or suggestions for addenda are always appreciated and invited.

Here are a few of the notes from the newly updated version:

AREOLA versus AUREOLE. Areola (pl. AREOLAE or AREOLAS) is the clinical term for the dark ring of flesh surrounding the nipple. Aureole, meaning “halo” or “radiance” (as in “aura”) can be employed as an artsy synonym for areola, but the two words should not be confused when one endeavors to write prose.

ASS. There is probably no other word in erotic fiction so often employed out of context or with such careless imprecision. ASS may refer either to (1) the buttocks or Gluteus Maximus, or (2) the ANUS (c.f.). The distinction is important insofar as readers need to have a clear picture of what’s going on in a scene (e.g. She took off her panties so I could admire her tight little ass. I assailed her quivering ass. I rubbed my cock up against her sweet, needy ass). Aside from the obvious, that these are examples of dismally unimaginative writing, can the reader say for sure what specific body parts are being referenced? Writers should also take care to use the word in proper historical and cultural context. While it is ubiquitous in contemporary usage (indeed, many people have grown up knowing no other word), such was not always the case. The word may sound perfectly apt on the lips of a Combat Zone hooker or even an adventurous married couple in the private throes of passion; but probably wouldn’t be quite so believable in the mouth of a Victorian noblewoman. Earlier generations wore their reticence like an extra layer of clothing, priding themselves on propriety and a certain stilted elegance in speech. Our day and age may be a tad more relaxed (or possibly a good deal less imaginative) when it comes to vocabulary, but good writers are always sensitive to issues of context and precision.

ATTRACTIVE people are not necessarily BEAUTIFUL (c.f.) or HANDSOME (c.f.), though these adjectives are commonly regarded as interchangeable.

BLUE BALLS describes both a physical and a psychological condition; that painful soreness in the once-expectant scrotum comes with a sobering sense of unfulfillment and frustration.

BOSOM and BREASTS are not exactly the same thing, though the words are so frequently confused nowadays (even by some supposedly reliable authorities) that it seems futile to point out the distinction. The BOSOM or BREAST (singular) is the general area of the upper chest taken in as a whole, which includes the pectoral muscles as well as the breasts and the cleavage between them. BREASTS (plural) refer specifically to the mammary glands, and are a constituent part of the BOSOM. A woman may be described as “full-bosomed” or “bosomy”, meaning “full-breasted” or “large-breasted” but the general distinction remains; BOSOM is the whole package, BREASTS a distinct feature within that package. And while one may choose to say “bosom” to mean “breasts”, “bosoms” (plural) is NOT a proper synonym for “breasts” though it has become fairly common in informal usage or as slang.

COME versus CUM. A simple rule of thumb for usage in erotic writing; COME is most commonly employed as a verb (e.g. I’m coming! or He came on her breasts.)  CUM is always a noun, referring most commonly to the product of male ejaculation (e.g. He shot his hot cum all over her face.) but also, occasionally the fluid product of female arousal. COME may sometimes be used as a noun, but it is best to maintain the distinction, and, whatever one choses to do, always be consistent.

EROTICA versus PORNOGRAPHY (c.f.). The words have been used interchangeably, their meanings conflated by so many for so long; the difference (or complete lack of any) debated so hotly without resolution or consensus, that it seems pointless, now, to make a case for differentiation. Puritans and prudes will always see smut wherever flesh is referenced, no matter how obliquely, while many of a more open-minded, sex-positive bent see no real value in a distinction. It does seem to matter a great deal to writers and publishers, though, whether due to peevish literary snobbery or mundane marketing concerns. For the purposes of this reference—focused as it is on the needs of serious authors—the words are regarded as possessing two similar but discrete meanings. PORNOGRAPHY deals with objects, focusing almost exclusively on the purely visible (i.e. graphic) physical aspects of the sex act. It eschews story, plot, conflict and character development in favor of vignettes featuring pure action, almost never reflected upon or analyzed in any serious or introspective way. EROTICA deals with subjects—characters—and while it may include a great deal of explicit physical description; it also concerns itself with the feelings and emotions of its actors, usually in a recognizable, coherent literary form. (No value judgment is implied in this distinction.)

FEMININE and MASCULINE (c.f.). Given that these words come with their own noxious freight-load of obsolete values and discredited patriarchal assumptions concerning gender characteristics, writers should proceed with some caution. Surely no one having seen an episode of Xena, Warrior Princess or Buffy the Vampire Slayer would be so foolish as to consider words like “docile”, “soft” or “weak” as universally appropriate (or even remotely accurate) substitutes for FEMININE. Nor, in this day and age, does MASCULINE exclusively (or even necessarily) convey concepts such as “bravery”, “nobility” or “strength”. However, in the name of thoroughness, a separate subheading has been added to include a list of these antiquated synonyms.

GIRL. A mature, sensitive and discerning man (or woman) well knows and appreciates the difference between a GIRL and a WOMAN (c.f.). Yet, in the most rigidly politically correct situations, referring to a female of any age as a GIRL is considered insulting and chauvinistic. Unfortunately, there seems to be no clear rule about when it is or isn’t acceptable to employ this term for “young female”. Some young females insist on being spoken of only as WOMEN (c.f.), while lots of reasonably liberated and mature women have no problem being referred to—or referring to themselves—as girls. As always, when writing good fiction, let the characters speak honestly and for themselves.

GLAMOR versus GLIMMER. Both words may be used to describe magical spells in which persons or things are enchanted in order to be perceived as something other than or different from themselves. (e.g. The ugly witch glamored the knight, who thereafter saw her only as a beautiful maiden.) GLAMOR, in its contemporary sense of artful allure or luxurious attractiveness, is no longer interchangeable with (and only obliquely related to) GLIMMER, which can be employed to describe something shiny or highly reflective.

HOT. Possibly the single-most overused word in all erotic writing; and certainly one of the most misused. Employ sparingly, and with acute awareness of the word’s two discrete functions. HOT (1.) meaning beautiful or extremely attractive, is an adjective with dozens of synonyms, and is easily avoided. HOT (2.) describes the state of being aroused (possibly by observing somebody who qualifies as hot?) again, with many readily available substitutes.

KINKY. Almost all synonyms for KINKY are atavistically pejorative or derogatory. Never mind that many kinky things, once ignorantly regarded as symptomatic of mental illness or sociopathic tendencies, have now begun to emerge, if not into the mainstream, at least into a greater light of understanding. The word, having thus lost most of its transgressive potency, is synonymous with nothing so much as “a willingness to seem different”. Someone into a KINKY LIFESTYLE (c.f.) is no longer reflexively condemned as a pervert; but, more often, hailed as a NONCONFORMIST (c.f.)

LAY versus LIE: Very often confused, especially in their various tenses, these two verbs continue to bedevil many an aspiring writer. Simple rule of thumb: To lay is to put a thing down (e.g. He laid the girl on the bed). To lie is to rest horizontally or to recline. (e.g. She was lying on her back).

PANTIES. Those writers of erotic historical fiction should be aware that the word did not come into the English language until 1908, (MWC 11 ed.) and was not in common usage before the 1920s. The British equivalent, KNICKERS did not appear until the very late nineteenth or early twentieth century (the term may or may not be related to the American “knickerbockers” (1881), a type of gathered short pants.) (MWC)  Nothing is more annoying than blatant anachronism in an otherwise well-written historical narrative.

PRURIENT is regularly employed as a catchall to describe any sort of illicit sexual feeling or state. In fact, PRURIENT has a much narrower meaning; a prurient thing is that which inspires or arouses “immoderate or unwholesome interest or desire.” (c.f. Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition (2008) (MWC))

SENSUAL versus SENSUOUS: a simple rule of thumb for remembering the difference between these two very similar, albeit subtly distinct, adjectives; what is sensual is often sexual; what is sensuous is occasionally sumptuous or luxurious. In real-world usage, much to the horror of the pedants, the words have become virtually interchangeable, and in their secondary definitions at least, synonymous.  Still, best not to use both in too close proximity.

VANILLA. Originating as jargon in psychological and sexological studies, meant to differentiate kinky sex (i.e. BDSM (c.f.), fetishism, SWINGING (c.f.)) from more socially conventional activities, VANILLA has become a popular put-down, akin to labeling someone a PRUDE (c.f.) or a square. Lately, and, it seems, with increasing frequency and vehemence, the word has been bandied about as a term of derision for those engaging in (or writing about) less-edgy behaviors, particularly non-kinky m/f activities. As is so often the case with rampant bandying, the term has been employed carelessly, and, on occasion, cruelly. It is not, in fact, a synonym for HETEROSEXUAL (c.f.) (based on an antiquated assumption that gay sex was uniquely transgressive, somehow more adventurous or “out there” than straight coupling). There are many gay and lesbian married couples engaging in perfectly satisfying vanilla sex every day of the year, and hundreds of millions of straight people who aren’t into BDSM, LEATHER (c.f.), FETISH (c.f.) or cosplay, nonetheless managing to enjoy exciting, self-fulfilling sex on a regular basis. A sexual practice that may be perceived as boring and conventional by outsiders is often more than adequately exciting to the people engaged in it. (Not everyone can afford to be choosey after all!) As far as usage is concerned, the term applies to those who tend not to show off or flaunt their sexuality; don’t “get their freak on” or engage in kink-related activities for whatever reason—regardless of orientation. Writers and critics should (we hope) employ this term sparingly, with some sensitivity and greater compassion. Bigotry is bigotry, regardless of where it comes from.

(*) SOME UPCOMING REVIEWS (all titles are recommended):

TheKiller Wore Leather by Laura Antoniou

Extraordinary Deviations (short story collection) by Raven Kaldera

FiftyWriters on Fifty Shades of Grey (ed. Laurie Perkins)

CarnalMachines: Steampunk Erotica (ed. D.L. King)

UnderHer Thumb: Erotic Stories of Female Domination (ed. D.L. King)

DreamLover: Paranormal Tales of Erotic Romance (ed. Kristina Wright