Publish and Be Damned

So I saw this on Slate.com. I don’t do this — don’t think I’ve had a dog in a story at all, not being a pet person — but I wonder how prevalent it is. Anybody have a dog out there? Just barking, now.

http://www.slate.com/id/2256007

What gets “in the way” of your writing? What are some little things you find yourself doing or avoiding in stories?

For me, it’s character names. I have a small list of names, mostly from family, that I find I just can’t use in an erotic story for the main characters. For a minor one it might work, but I haven’t tried that yet. But I find I can’t use my kids’ names, my parents’ names, etc. Which makes it interesting when looking for character names.

Do I use euphemism? Maybe. Not exactly. Or perhaps it’s euphemism by omission.

I’m the first one to admit that I don’t use a lot of words common in erotic fiction, especially those that describe male and female body parts. Anyone reading my stories looking for words like cock, pussy, prick, snatch, and fuck are going to end up disappointed.

I have nothing against these words per se. Words are words and different authors need different ones for their stories. I’ve read plenty of stories with those words and I’m not offended or turned off or anything else. It’s just not the way I write.

My erotica is romantic in nature, and I find that the usual words as cited above tend to be too crude for what I want. Again — nothing wrong with the words themselves. It may be an odd comparison, but much as some horror writers imply what’s happening off page instead of spelling it out, I hope that by not giving  a microscopic description of a sex scene, the readers can take what they want from it. I gather it works, as many readers have told me my scenes are effective.

“More,” he said again, and this time moved his hands to slide her slacks off. Lani was gasping as he dragged his fingers along her legs, teasing her by slowing down as he moved closer to her center. She wanted for him to touch her, or to be able to touch him, but he had her half-pinned with her body and seemed content to have her there.

“Dom, please,” she whispered, amazed she could even form a word. He teased her a few moments more until she couldn’t stand it and grabbed his wrist to move his hand up. They both groaned as he touched her, she in relief and he at the heat. She released his hand as he slid his fingers into the wetness, stroking and thrusting to drive her to a peak.

“Let me,” he heard her say. He was so lost in the feel and scent of her that he hadn’t heard her the first time. “Please, let me touch you.” Her hands wandered along his sides and over his back and he hissed out a breath.

Dom shook his head, brushing his lips against hers. “Next time,” he promised, pressing his lips to hers, and then to her neck and shoulder. “Go on,” he said, “I’ve got you.” He whispered more to her and was rewarded when she cried out and shook beneath him. His hand moved steadily, keeping her on the edge until she tumbled over. At last he stopped and held her, letting her calm down.

(from Nothing Gets Through)

I’m a romantic at heart, and I suppose that’s where this comes from. I think, to me, it’s the chemistry between characters that helps make a scene erotic. Sure, a scene between two people who just a want quickie with no strings can be well written and arousing, but to me, something will be missing. Since I concentrate more on the emotion and less on the physical in my scenes, I find I don’t need or use a lot of description of body parts. I think that’s consistent for me as well, given how fuzzy and vague my descriptions of people and places tend to be anyway.

So I suppose what I’m doing is not exactly euphemism (which brings to mind phrases like “her soft petals enveloped his hard stalk” — or am I straying into metaphor territory?). I’m not sure if there’s a term. I’m leaving hints, I’m strongly implying — whatever works. Because isn’t the mind the best erogenous zone anyway?

Are settings in erotica important? Do you really need a sense of place as an integral part of what you’re writing? Will that necessarily add anything to the experience of the reader? For me the answer to all those questions depends very much on what you want from your erotica.

If all you want is to get off, if you’re looking for that orgasm and all you need is a lovely filthy scene to arouse you, with the right amount of dirty words written in just the right order to bring you to exquisite climax… then no, it could be set anywhere. Chances are you’ll skip any scene setting from the author and just head straight for the dirty bit, not really caring one way or another whether they’re in Cairo, Leeds or your grannie’s guest room. It’s all about the sex. And I’m completely okay with that attitude. There’s a great deal of smut on my blog written without so much as a nod towards the setting, where it’s just about the sensations, the words, the sexuality of the scenes, and I think that can work really well. I also think, however, that it can get very tired very quickly.

Erotica is all about engaging the imagination as much as the senses. You want the reader to picture the scene taking place, to be right there enjoying it with you, to feel it in a very specific way. You want them to immerse themselves in the scene, to feel the brush of skin against skin, to hear the sounds of gasps and groans, to be at the very least a voyeur and ideally a participant of the sex you’re describing for them. This involves a little work on your part as the author. How much work depends entirely on your own preferences or the purpose to which you’re working.

I’ve recently called an end to a two month ongoing orgy in my blog, in which the only prerequisite was to get as many readers together as possible, to engage in eager sex with each other. Even something as simple as this needed context. I began the orgy like this:

I’ve hired a lovely big, very expensive hotel suite – there are no bedrooms, just one big, plush room filled with gorgeous velvet curtains, snuggly soft cushions, low lighting, some big comfortable couches, soft furry rugs on the floor, plenty of pillows, a little sexy music, a very well stocked bar, and all the sex toys you might possibly need for a deliciously wild night of intense group sex.

Very simple scene setting, about as basic as you can get, but it established the tone for the entire event, and left enough room for the participants to add their own ideas and create their own space.

My Sophie stories are far more concerned with getting a real sense of the time and the place in which the sex is taking place. “Sophie in London” opens on board an airship, and begins like this:

The Zeppelin rose majestically from its moorings, the groan and creak of iron and riggings echoing above our heads as the earth fell slowly away. I felt a subtle sway beneath my feet, and the momentary sensation of vertigo, of leaving the world behind, as we began our leisurely ascent.

This was the first time I had ever left the ground. Flight had never held any appeal for me, and I’ll admit to a certain quiet terror as we swung slowly into the air. I tried not to think too much about what was keeping us up, tried not to wonder about how some invisible gas could raise the huge hulk of this mammoth construction.

As we made our stately way over the red tiled Parisian rooftops, drifting slowly up towards the clouds, I could see the great grey shadow of the airship skipping eagerly after us, darting here and there between the buildings, forever trying to catch up and never quite succeeding.

Sophie stood next to me on the promenade deck as we began our journey towards London, keeping me company as I gazed at the glorious view drifting below. The crowds underneath us watched our slow, meandering progress over Paris, pointing at us open mouthed as we floated overhead. An airship of this size over the city was by no means an everyday occurrence. I almost envied the people below, jealous of their view of the huge airship as it gleamed in the early evening sunlight.

A little more extravagant, but this still turns into a very explicit foursome within just a few pages – but we now have an idea of where it takes place, what the characters are like, and it establishes a decadent tone that continues throughout the Sophie stories, and which the stories celebrate. I almost always write the Sophie stories in this way. Setting the scene and having a little conversation between the participants of the sex beforehand acts as foreplay, building the sensuality of the scene, allowing you to anticipate it, getting the reader ready for the pleasure to come.

I think it’s a much more creative way to write, it challenges the reader a little, and I think it really pays off when it gets to the sex. The reader identifies with or becomes the characters, and for me that leads to more enjoyment, more complete immersion in the scenes and ultimately, because of this reader identification, much nicer, more rewarding orgasms.

Which is mostly our business, after all…

I like stories with a strong sense of setting. I truly enjoy feeling the texture of a place well described, the grit under my fingers, the faded, chipped paint of a windowsill. On the other hand, as both a reader and writer, I like settings that are virtually nonexistent – either minimally described, or truly limbo-like non-spaces. Much like characters, I often like the reader to fill in a great deal of the texture himself – in some pieces, especially flash fiction like the Nightmares and Visions, it serves the function of making the reader a participant in creating the tiny space of the scene.

“A sole brilliant spotlight in a vast, dark room illuminated me from above.” (N&V #1) – Unformed space

“I am curled in a ball, naked on the floor.” (N&V #9). – Nowhere

“It’s pitch dark. I think I’m blindfolded. Someone is fucking me”. (N&V 22) – Disoriented

“I was titillated, even aroused by the scene, but I wanted to warn the woman. To call out and wake her from her dream. To help her  escape whatever was seducing her in her sleep. She couldn’t hear me.” (N&V 39) Nowhere – watching a dream.

“I am taking a long soak in the hot bath after a hard day. I doze in the steamy, scented water. A low clanging and gurgling sound in the pipes disturbs my repose.” (N&V 53) – Barest establishment.

(All from Nightmares and Visions, Republica Press)

For many of the Nightmares, the lack of setting – or the indistinctness of setting, is part and parcel of the feeling of displacement, or being lost or out of control inherent in the vignettes being told. This kind of sparseness or negative space can either draw in or alienate the reader from the place, but I think both are valid, and both are therefore correct.

In my stories, settings sometime serve very specific functions.  In In The Dark the setting is designed to separate the main character from the “real” world just on the other side of the door so that she could cross into new experience.

“Sandra closed and locked the bathroom door, sighed, and went to the mirror to touch up  her makeup, grateful for the brief privacy of the small ‘extra’ bathroom next to the standard,  multi-stalled ladies’ room. She was having an OK time, but was getting discouraged, losing the heart and purpose she had come with. Damn Phillip anyway.

In flash of motion behind her, the door to the bathroom suddenly opened and closed, letting in a loud blast of music. At the same time the lights went out, and an instant later, just as Sandra startled from the noise, one hand grabbed her arm as another clamped over her mouth. “ (In The Dark, in Through a Tinted Lens, Republica Press)

In other stories rather than removing the character from the familiar setting, the familiarity of the setting is removed instead:

“We run along toward the north field. The noises of the waking city seem to murmur more quietly, muffled by the veil of mist. We pass other runners almost startling each other during fleeting moments of resolution on the winding path. We hit the long curving pathway of the northern field and with your hand at the small of my back, we veer off the path and onto the grass, to be quickly lost in the barely lightening gray of the pre-dawn in fog.

The trees lining the path become dark, smudged shapes, then disappear altogether in the mist. We run ten, twenty more paces, then slow in a small closed-in patch of green surrounded apparently, nothing, though mere tens of yards in any direction, there isn’t anything between us and the paths, and beyond that the streets lined with apartment buildings and business skyscrapers facing the park. We hear a truck hit the brakes, the thudding tread of a runner, an eager dog pulling his lead. We are in the middle of the living, waking city, but, at the moment, in complete privacy. “ (Fog in Through a Tinted Lens, Republica Press)

Sometimes the setting is indeed intimately wound into the story. In The Cliff, it’s details, and the need to experience them are an essential part of the story:

“I gazed over at him. Nick looked like he was supporting the cliff, instead of the other way around. In the pale moonlight, his sinewy arms and legs were the same blue-gray as the granite wall. His chalk-dusted fingers sought and hooked into holds naturally, reflexively, the toes on his climbing shoes finding purchase on the tiniest juts. Like hanging onto a rock face was no different than leaning against a wall. He was gorgeous. Hot. The fact he wore only his climbing harness and shoes made it even hotter.” (The Cliff, in Through a Tinted Lens, Republica Press)

In The Cliff, the scene isn’t set all at once, that kind of dawning and filling in of the setting as the story moves makes it hard to showcase it in a small quote, but the developing of the setting over the action is an essential almost-character in the story.

And then there’s alienness. In some stories, I’m trying to place the characters and readers in truly different setting, like an alien world, or a demented laboratory. The stories in Through an Ethereal Lens do this, but through somewhat minimal means. In “From the Blue World” the Aquarioum exhibit setting is used again to separate the character from the known, so that the strange may take place:

“The exhibit space was cleverly designed, snaking around many different tanks, keeping people from crowding too much. Velvet ropes and dark curtains guided and funneled everyone into single file, and kept the conversations hushed. The dim lighting allowed animals in faintly lit—or black-lit tanks to be easily seen. The path twisted this way and that, past fascinating, colorful sea life…” (From the Blue World – in Through An Ethereal Lens, Republica Press)

It is in this dark maze-like path that Paula comes unstuck from the mundane.

I’ve been experimenting with more textured settings. Upcoming stories play a little more with the grit and detail of a place, but I think my tendency towards setting minimalism remains fairly strong. It’s the intimate world of the people experiencing the action that draws me, and that upon which I want the reader to focus.

-Monocle

When one reads as many sex stories as I do, one starts to see the same words in every story.  Here are a few that I’ve had to look up in the dictionary for the preferred spellings.  If you disagree, please weigh in on the matter.  Also feel free to add words that have debatable spellings to the list. 

The following words are written in my preferred style:

1) girlfriend, boyfriend

2) best friend

3) half sister, half brother (yep, I read incest stories)

4) stepmother, stepfather

5) makeup

6) miniskirt

7) knee socks

8.  high heel shoes

9) floodgates (you’d be surprised how often this word appears in erotic stories)

10) telltale

11) collarbone

12) rib cage

13) bull’s eye

14) goosebumps

Writers, I’m in need of your help.  I need a dirty dictionary that I can use as a reference text in editing erotic stories.  To my knowledge no such book exists (is there a website out there, please advise) so I’ve decided to use you authors as a reference source.  Please give me your valuable input on the preferred spellings of the following words.  Your help in this important matter is greatly appreciated.   

1. blowjob  or  blow job  or blow-job

2. handjob or hand job  or hand-job

3.  ass cheeks or asscheeks

4.  doggy style or doggy-style

5.  G-spot or G spot

6. G-string or G string or g-string

7.  cock slut or cockslut

8. bare-assed or bare assed

9.  fuckfest or fuck fest or fuck-fest

10.  strap-on dildo or strap on dildo

11. hard on  or  hard-on

12. butt plug  or  butt-plug

“It was a shabby room, like a cheap, long-stay hotel room or a bed-sit in one of the poorer districts of Tokyo. A woven burnt orange curtain covered the window, but she knew from the lack of noise that it was like so many other windows in this city – a window to nowhere – it looked out onto an airshaft. Of all the filthy, lousy places to die, there was something bitterly ironic about getting murdered in a room that, given half a chance, she might commit suicide in anyway.” (from Gaijin, Republica Press)

For me, settings are an integral part of why I write and how I write. I don’t think this is necessarily the best way to approach writing – it’s just my way. Perhaps as much or even more than people, I’ve always found the combination of place, time and circumstance a powerful enabler of story. For every person, I think there is a specific combination of the three elements that will together conspire to make ordinary people do extraordinary things – to take a regular human being and force them, by dint of a sort of literary Darwinism, to evolve into an interesting character.

In Gaijin, the settings heighten Jennifer’s feeling of vulnerability. The banal, depressing surroundings in the opening scene underline her need to interact with other human beings, no matter who they are. The Bahausian neutrality of Sindo’s apartment contrast sharply with the tattoos on his body, making his colouration surreal. The snow on the balcony is the counter point to both the heat of Shindo’s lust and the warmth of Jennifer’s humanity. It also serves as a stylized backdrop to the human drama played out on the balcony: scenery for the kabuki that takes place out there.

Atmosphere in setting, especially, can bring eroticism to the surface or suppress it. It can be used as a stressor to push unlikely characters together.  In The Waiting Room, Sophie and Alex are both strangers in a strange land; the macrocosmic setting of the sleepy Cambodian town offers them an obvious commonality. But there is also the microcosm – not just place but light, temperature, smell, sound:

“The crickets were screaming, and the single strip of lighting flickered on and off, pinging occasionally the way all fluorescents do. Somewhere in the distance, a hollow bell rang — night prayers for Buddhist monks — and from another direction the strange reedy sound of a woman’s voice singing karaoke in an outdoor cafe.

Her eyes snapped open, irritated by the noise and the blinking light. The man on the bench opposite quickly shifted his gaze to the floor; he’d been staring at her.

Tucking up her knees, Sophie tugged furiously at the hem of her cotton dress, trying to cover her bare legs from the mosquitoes that were surely eyeing her up as a late-night feast. The heat and the humidity began to tug at her eyelids, and she shifted slightly, nestling her hands between her knees.

It was the noise that woke her. Not the insects or pinging, but a sound that was utterly out of place in the environment — the stuttered rip of a zipper. She opened her eyes to see him looking at her again but, this time, he didn’t look away. His face was unreadable as she watched him push a hand inside his open jeans, free a semi-erect cock, and begin slowly and casually to stroke it.” (The Waiting Room, Republica Press)

One of the things I enjoy most about using setting in erotica is the ability to use it as a juxtaposition to the sex that is happening in it. Of course, you could set your sex somewhere familiar and comfortable – it would deepen the sense of security and trust. Or you could set it somewhere opulent and allow it to infect the sex with an erotic decadence. However, I find the hottest sex of happens in the places you least expect it to occur.

“It took her a moment or two to notice that his expression had changed. The grin was gone and Alex leaned forward, stood and grabbed her by the wrist.

“Come with me,” he said low and terse as he yanked her to her feet and out the door of the compartment, into the passageway. He didn’t stop there, but pulled her along behind him as he strode down the aisle, looking into compartments. Finally, he stopped at a small, narrow door and tried the handle. It opened and he stepped in, jerking her in with him. It was some kind of a storage space, not large enough to be a luggage compartment, or small enough to be a broom closet. It wasn’t until she was fully inside that the stench hit her.

It was the toilet. There was no sink, only a metal rack, and in the floor, a hole the size of a dinner plate, down through which she could see the ties whizzing by. No one had cleaned it in years.

Alex slammed the door behind her and pushed her against it.

“For fuck’s sake, Alex!” She yelled at him as her the back of her head hit the door painfully. “What’s your problem?”

“What is yours, Sophie?” He demanded in return, pinning her shoulders back. His face was inches from hers; she could hardly breathe for his proximity and the stench in the tiny room. “Where did you learn to hate yourself like this? Who taught you to be so ashamed?”

She stared back at him, lips pressed tight. What could she say? Shaking her head slowly, understanding his question and wishing to god she had an answer for him. “I don’t know.”

Alex nodded just once and pressed her into the door with his body. “We need to find out, schatze. You need to find out.”

“Can we please get out of here now?”

He nuzzled her neck with his face, moving his lips up to her ear. “Don’t you want to fuck?” He asked, grinding his hips against hers.

“Here?”

“Yes, why not?” he replied, his hand sliding over her breast and squeezing hard.

“Not here, Alex. It’s filthy…it’s sordid.”

His body was relentless, undulating against her, his hands drifted from secret place to secret place, probing her, kneading her.

“Yes, it is.” Alex’s voice had gone liquid and suggestive. “It’s filthy. Sophie-the-slut, let’s fuck…” (The Waiting Room, Republica Press)

I’ve always believed that the obligation of an erotica writer is to take the reader to places where ‘angels fear to tread’ both metaphorically and literally. Setting works on both a concrete and symbolic level to allow me to do that.