Only One Story

By Lisabet Sarai

Sometimes I feel as though I'm writing the same story, over and over, about the same person. If you've been reading the Grip for a while, you'll know who I'm talking about – the man who introduced me to dominance and submission, more than thirty years ago, and left his fingerprints all over my soul.

We were a couple for less than two years. Then happenstance, plus our own insecurities and misconceptions, came between us, and we ended up first on opposite sides of a continent, now on opposite sides of the globe.

My first erotica was for him – private fantasies to amuse and arouse him. Or so I told myself. Maybe I was really writing them for myself, to relive the intensity and the joy, to explore all the territory we never had time to traverse together.

Then came Raw Silk. He was simultaneously appalled and flattered. Not that the events in the book are based on reality, but he certainly recognized the emotions, the dynamics. I even quoted a few of the wild, cheesy, breath-stopping letters he used in his epistolary seduction.

Anyone familiar with my backlist knows I don't always write BDSM. I've got stories in pretty much every genre, with every combination of genders. But when I do write tales of power exchange, I think readers sense my own deeper involvement with the topic at hand. And even when I write F/F power play, he's there in my head and in the scene, making comments.

*****

He dangled the whip above her shoulder, the knots just touching, then brushed it lightly across her breasts. The leather was amazingly soft, but as he dragged it across her still-swollen nipples, she felt the echo of the clamps on her flesh.

Now he was delicately tracing an upward path, from her pubic fur across her belly, sending delicious tremors up her spine and down her bound arms. Thus far, he was using the cat o' nine tails as an instrument of pure pleasure.

He spoke again, without stopping his leather caresses. “Have you ever been beaten by a lover, Kate?”

Kate shook her head, and felt herself blush, though she did not understand why.

“Have you ever dreamed or fantasised about such a thing?” Gregory asked.

“No,” said Kate, indignant. “Of course not.”

Gregory laughed. “Of course not? Indeed! Perhaps you don’t remember your dreams, Kate.”

He leaned close to her ear, whispering. “The first time I laid eyes on you, Kate, I sensed that you craved the whip. I saw it in your eyes, in the way you moved, in your fierce, almost defiant independence. I felt your yearning to be mastered, to be set free.”

Kate hung her head, and said nothing. Was what he said true? Did she really know so little of herself?

“I want to whip you, Kate, whip you well, to open your mind and your senses to the possibilities within you.”

~ Raw Silk (1999)

****

"Being naughty again, Sarah?" He speaks softly, his rich, melodious voice seducing me as it always does. "Trying to tease me, my little slut?"

"Just trying to cheer you up." I arch my back slightly, silently suggesting that he explore my cleft more deeply. In typical exasperating fashion, he takes his hand away.

"Perfectly innocent, I'm sure," he mocks, but he's smiling now, TV forgotten, the power and challenge of his attention fully directed at me. I bask in his gaze, proud and humble simultaneously. "You know what happens when you tease me. I'm sure that you remember the other night."

Of course I do, and the memory leaves me wet and breathless: the binding, the beating, the final delicious buggering. My sex overflows. My thighs are slippery with my juices. I imagine he can hear the liquid squelch as I walk. His arm is around my shoulder now, guiding me along.

We pass a display of galvanized steel fittings. I stop, fascinated. Sturdy eye bolts and swivel bolts, hooks and pulleys, interlocking rings and brackets, all sensuously curved and shining a dull silver. I can't take my eyes away, imagining spread limbs and stretched muscles. Hardware stores always bring out my creative side.

He laughs at my intensity. "You know that we can't attach anything to the walls, Sarah. It's in the resident's agreement."

"Well... what about out on the deck?" Our top-floor condo has a lovely patio built out on the flat part of the roof. From there we have a fabulous view of the city, from Twin Peaks to the Golden Gate.

"You want me to bind you out in the open, where anyone uphill can see you?" He rolls his eyes heavenward, pretending annoyance. "And you say that I'm perverted!"

He steers me onward. Reluctantly, I leave the suggestive display of fittings, only to be transfixed by the rolls of self-service chain at the other end of the aisle.

"Chain is completely impractical," he reminds me with a grin.

"But it's so decorative, so evocative," I counter. "Whips and chains, you know."

"Whatever you want, dear," he says, bowing low. I make a choice and he cuts me a four foot length of the pretty, brass-finished stuff with half-inch links. He dumps it into our basket. It gives a satisfying clink whenever we move.

My nipples go taut at the sound. He notices, of course, and leans down to tweak one, hard. Another wave of lubrication gushes from my cunt. His nostrils flare as my scent fills the aisle.

"My turn," he says. "Let's go check out the dowels." His thumb and forefinger are still grasping my swollen tit. He leads me toward the back of the store.

~ Wednesday Night at Rocky's Ace Hardware (2002)

****

"Good. Now, then. Let's get rid of those clothes."

I began to unbutton my blouse.

"No, don't move. I’ll undress you, this time."

He undid the first three buttons and pulled the garment open to reveal my unglamorous cotton bra. He brushed his fingertips over my swollen nipples, clearly visible as they poked out the fabric. Pleasure shivered across my skin and down to my already-aching pussy.

"You have such lovely big nipples. So sensitive." He pinched the right one. I gasped. "I don't want you to wear a bra anymore. I want everyone to be able to see those luscious tits of yours."

"But, when I teach... It's not proper..."

"Did I say you could speak?" He frowned briefly. I wanted to drop through the floor.

"If you want to please me, you'll go braless. It's up to you."

I was silent. I craved his approval, more than anything.

He laid a cool palm against my cheek. "What other people think doesn't matter, Colette. You only need to worry about me."

All at once he leaned down and kissed me. I expected brashness, energy, power. Instead it was a gossamer kiss, delicate, the barest contact of his lips on mine.

It set me on fire. Tremors raced through my body. I felt his hands everywhere, exploring, exposing my raw need. I felt his mind, questing, tasting the flavors of my lust. Yet only his lips were touching me, and just barely.

I wanted more. I wanted his tongue, his fingers. I wanted his cock, which I knew was hard though I hadn't seen it. I was acutely aware of his lust, controlled and hidden as it was. I tried to press my body against him, but he pulled away.

"Not yet. Not until you're ready." He resumed the process of methodically removing my clothes. He did not touch me again. I could swear that he was trying to frustrate me. I promised myself that I wouldn't beg.

Finally, I was naked. He stepped back to look me over. "Very nice. Even nicer than I imagined. You have such fair skin, Colette. The blood is very close to the surface."

Blood? I remembered that I hardly knew this man. Somehow that was irrelevant.

"And you're so hairy, down here. I'm glad you're not shaved. Although that might heighten the sensations, I admit that I'm somewhat old-fashioned." He slipped a finger through the curly tangle of my pubic hair, unerringly finding my clit. Sparks shot through me. My body jerked uncontrollably.

He took his hand away. I prayed silently that he'd put it back.

"So very wet, too. That's excellent. It will raise the conductivity."

~ Body Electric (2008)

****

Three years since I last saw him, and now his plane is late. I perch on the edge of the chair across from the American Airlines desk where he told me to meet him, tension winding me tighter with every moment.

It’s always like this. My chest aches. It’s difficult to breathe. My nipples are as taut and swollen as if he already had them wrapped in elastic bands. I try not to be distracted by the stickiness between my bare thighs. I glance at the arrivals screen. His flight has just landed. Ten minutes, fifteen at most, before I can expect him. I fill my lungs deliberately and try to slow my racing pulse.

I hover between joy and terror. It has been so long, too long. What will he think of me, the strands of gray in my hair, the new wrinkles? What will he ask of me? Will I be able to give him what he needs? I remember other reunions, too few, too short. No time for more than a few kisses, a few playful swats on my bared butt. I remember lying on his lap in Golden Gate Park, my skirt flipped up around my waist. I can precisely recreate my shame and my excitement. I recall slouching down in the front seat of his car in a dark, sweltering parking garage, while he unbuttoned my blouse and dabbled his fingers in my cunt, naming me as his slut. A few hours every few years is all we manage, a country and my marriage separating us even as our history and our fantasies draws us together.

Today will be different. I’ve booked us a hotel room, in this city where neither of us live. We have the entire day. My husband waits for me at home, while I wait here in the airport for my master.

I don’t call him that to his face. He’d mock me, his voice bitter. “If I were your master, I’d simply order to you leave him and come to me, and you would.” He doesn’t give me that order, although I suspect that he’s tempted. He refrains, out of respect for me and my choices, or maybe in fear that his power over me is not as great as he would like to imagine. He spares us both, and I’m grateful, though now, waiting, burning to see him again, I almost wish that he’d put me to that ultimate test and take away the awful yearning that I feel when we’re apart.

Every one of my senses is on alert, yet he manages to surprise me. I’m looking toward the gates. He comes from the other direction and calls to me softly. “Sarah.”

I start and then laugh nervously. When I stand up, my bag tumbles off my lap to the floor, toys clattering inside. “You’re here!” I feel clumsy, silly, stupid, but when he bends to kiss me, everything but the joy disappears. I’m flooded with it, gasping, overwhelmed.

In his limbs I feel his pitiless strength. His lips, though, are gentle, questioning. Am I still his? I melt, open my mouth and my mind to him. Does he sense the answer? Sometimes I am certain that he reads my thoughts. He laughs ironically and calls me suggestible. I don’t know what to believe, which suits him perfectly. He wants me a bit off-balance.

I struggle to act normal, as if I were just meeting an old friend. “How was your flight? Did you have trouble with your connections? What about your baggage? Is that the only jacket you have? October here can be kind of chilly...”

“Hush,” he says, laying a blunt finger upon my lips. “Don’t chatter. Take me to the hotel.”

~ Reunion (2009)

****

It takes no more than sixty seconds. One dark look from him and I'm on my knees, his heavy, uncut cock brushing my lips. "Open," he says, and his silken voice wipes away every doubt and regret.

His cock is as silky as his voice but with a core of steel. He slides it into my suddenly eager mouth. I suck at the salty, slighty sour flesh, but only for an instant before he takes over.

He's very hard, very urgent. The hand tangled in my hair tells me he needs this as much as I apparently do. He drives his length down my throat. I take it all, like some porn star, desperate to please him. It hurts. The skin is soft but he uses his cock like a battering ram, determined to break down my walls.

They are down already. I stretch my jaws, crane my neck, and receive what he gives.

His cum erupts across my tongue. I choke and sputter, trying to swallow the bitter fluid. A few drops trickle down my chin onto my linen jacket. At that moment, I don't care. He strokes my curls back into some semblance of order and raises me to my feet. His eyes are black diamonds.

"I knew it," he says. Slow, thoughtful, he smears my lipstick even further with his thumb. I feel my lower lips gaping too, just as wet and swollen. "I could tell." My nipples peak under my jacket, screaming for his attention. He continues to gaze into my eyes. I can't hide.

The elevator dings. "My floor," he says, laughter rippling on the edge of his words for the first time. He takes my hand. A sharp rectangle of plastic cuts into my sweating palm. "Room 1263. Seven o'clock."

"But..." I begin. He silences me with a single look.

~ Never Too Late (2010)

****

He's the sadist in our relationship. But I'm the one who's more extreme.

He wanted to strap a butterfly vibe to my clit, to ramp up my arousal so I could better bear the pain. Does he really believe I could be more aroused than I already am?

I'm immobilized in one of our dinette chairs. Leather cuffs secure my wrists and ankles. Woven straps encircle my thighs, my upper arms, my waist and torso. The first rasp of separating Velcro liquefied me. No, that's not right. I've been soaked since I served him dinner and he informed me, ever so casually, that tonight was the night.

He putters around the kitchen, drawing out the preparations, making me wait. My Master possesses an instinctive sense of timing - an asset for any Dom. He plays every action for greatest effect. The goose necked lamp from my desk has already been plugged in, ready to dispel any shadows. Spreading a clean towel on the breakfast bar beside my chair, he lays out his materials and implements, one at a time: latex gloves, a cigarette lighter, rubbing alcohol, cotton balls, betadine, gauze, surgical tape, and finally, two gleaming, silvery scalpels. The steel flashes under the fluorescent lights, impossibly sharp.

A shudder ripples through my bound body, half terror, half lust. My juices pool under my bare ass.

He cups my chin in his palm and raise my face to his. His lips curve into a half smile. I know from his eager inhalation that he's caught my pussy scent. My cheeks burn, but he won't let me look away.

"Are you all right, Becca?" His voice makes me think of polished mahogany and warm honey, dark, rich and sweet beyond measure. He could order me to do anything in that voice and I'd rush to obey. "Still want to go ahead?"

Shame and desire battle inside me. No matter how many scenes we play, I'm always appalled by my own perversity. I swallow hard, unable to force the words out. How can I want this? How can I admit that I do?

~ Limits: A Love Story (2012)

****

See what I mean? I'd worry about this – obsession – but it has fueled what I know are my best, my truest, stories, so how can I wish it gone? In these tales, I can create the future together that we never had. I can imagine what it would be like if I'd been with him for the past three decades, instead of my (much beloved) husband. I can take my memories of the few, limited encounters we've had over the years and spin them into sweet, dark scenes without the bitter taste of regret.

In these stories, I take a heady journey into an alternate reality. And he is my constant companion.

Just Sex

By Lisabet Sarai



"I am going to tie you to the bed, Colette, unless you tell me to stop. You don't have to be afraid. I've done this many times before."

Jealousy flared up, replacing the fear. Who else had he used the way he was using me?

"So, I'm just another conquest for you?" Ryan looked surprised at my outburst. He sat down beside me on the bed and took my hand.

"No, of course not. You know better than that. You know that you're special."

"I'm sure that you tell every one of your women that."

"But it's true. I knew it the moment I saw you. You have a precious gift, a sexual intensity that you can't hide, though you try. A craving for the extremes of sensation. Overwhelming curiosity and insatiable appetite. The rare ability to surrender completely to pleasure."

His touch was making me weak, but I still tried to resist.

"In the stories, the doms always say that. They know how to push the right buttons. They seduce their victims into thinking that there's something magical and deep about their interaction. When after all, it's just sex -- kinky, perverted, but in the final analysis, just sex."

"Just sex?" Ryan leaped onto the bed, straddling my body, pinning my wrists to the sheets with his huge hands. Then he kissed me with a ferocity that literally took my breath away. His tongue forced its way into my mouth and tangled with mine. He gnawed at my lips, mashing them against my teeth. I tasted blood.

I struggled against him for a moment, then relaxed and let his mouth ravage me. With that release came pleasure so acute that it washed away all thought. I was floating in a sea of pleasure: the tingling in my nipples where his shirt rubbed against them; the sparks flashing across my belly from the pressure of his hidden cock; the exquisite contractions rippling through the depths of my cunt.

I writhed against him, unable to control myself, not caring what he thought or what he did. I opened myself to the pleasure and let it take me away.

"'And if the body does not do as much as the Soul? And if the body were not the Soul, what is the Soul?'"

Ryan had relinquished my mouth and was peering down at me. His long black hair half-obscured his blazing eyes.

I gasped for breath. "Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass." The pleasure had subsided somewhat, but I knew that it lay waiting for me to claim it again.

"Yes. 'Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, the atmosphere and the clouds, and what was expected of heaven or fear'd of hell, are now consumed.' That's what he was talking about, you know. Sex. 'Just' sex."

I nodded. I knew.

"Let me bind you, Colette."

I nodded again.

My bed had no hooks, no attachment points. Ryan simply fastened one end of the rope around my wrist, then threaded it under the bed and up the other side to wrap my other wrist. My ankles he secured in a similar manner. Simple and efficient. I lay quietly, feeling the pleasure trembling beneath the surface whenever he touched me.

Before long he stood over me. I assumed that he was admiring his handiwork.

I had imagined this, but the reality was far more intense. I was helpless, unable to move or escape. Truly in his power. My body was displayed, shameless, available for him to use in any way he desired. I have never been more frightened. Or more excited.

-- From “Body Electric” by Lisabet Sarai. In Yes, Sir: Erotic Stories of Female Submission,edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. Cleis, 2008.


The story quoted above is very personal. While the characters and the action are imagined, the central question in “Body Electric” is one that I've considered many times during my five-odd decades. I've had some sexual experiences that could only be called transcendent. They overwhelmed me. They changed me forever. What does that mean? How can I reconcile this fact with the popular wisdom that desire and sexual pleasure are somehow lesser experiences than “love”? The notion that sex is something basic, primitive, animal, and instinctive, whereas love is an expression of humanity's higher nature?

Of course, the sexual experiences to which I refer were not primarily physical. Especially in BDSM, at least for me, the physical is simply a gateway to a different psychic state, a lens that focuses the emotions. Meanwhile, I'll admit that I've always had difficulty separating sex and love, to the extent that I've started to wonder whether the distinction isn't completely artificial.

In my wilder days, I had – I was about to write “many lovers”, but I realize that description will mean different things to different people. So instead I'll say “multiple lovers” and leave you to interpret that as you will. With one or two exceptions that still leave a bad taste in my mouth, I felt that I loved them all. Even with the occasional one-night stands, there was tenderness and warmth. As for the person who introduced me to BDSM—well, I still call him my lover and my master, more than thirty years later, despite the fact that I'm twenty seven years married (to someone else) and we haven't shared a “scene” in almost that long. I love him dearly. Did the lust and excitement transmute to love? Did I have to love him first, in order to trust him the way I did, the very first time we were naked together?

Is there an answer to this question, any more than there's one to Walt Whitman's? “And if the body were not the Soul, what is the Soul?”

These days I spend a lot of time (more than I'd like) pondering the dichotomy of erotica and romance and trying to walk the fine line between them. Perhaps that line is illusory, too. True, each genre has its own conventions, but are they really different in some fundamental way? I wrote Raw Silk as erotica; it is now marketed, more or less successfully, as erotic romance. In today's romance, the intensity of the sexual connection between the protagonists is a mirror of their love. Not infrequently, the physical communion appears first.

Some erotica authors can write about sex without any overt recourse to love. Remittance Girl and Mike Kimera particularly come to mind. Even with these authors, though, sex transforms their characters. Desire is an alchemy that transmutes sweat and semen, saliva and pussy juice, into something rarer, finer, closer to what makes us human. One of those abstracts that we write with implicit capitals. Beauty. Truth.

Sometimes, too, I wonder if I can love someone without feeling, at some level, desire. I was startled to realize, in my late teens, that I not only loved and admired a close girlfriend—I was aroused by her. Parents, siblings, elderly relatives—okay, they don't turn me on. But there's at least a hint of a sexual dimension in most of my other relationships.

Am I abnormal? Confused? Deviant? Maybe. But perhaps not. So many people travel through life deliberately distanced from their sexual selves. They reject their lust as shameful and unworthy. I've never felt that way. That's one reason I can write what I do without blushing or making apologies.

Sex or love, Ashley asked in his topic for this week. As for me, I'll take both, thank you.

Facts Are Not Enough

By Lisabet Sarai

"Just the facts, ma'am."

Research is an integral part of writing, even in fiction. When you're an author, you've got to get it right. Some readers take insane glee in pointing out gaffes and discrepancies. Have your ancient Roman characters drinking tea, your Elizabethans using the word “clitoris”, your Dom swinging a cane made of bamboo (I've been pointedly informed that bamboo is too brittle for a cane and that rattan is the preferred material), and you may find yourself ridiculed throughout the blogosphere. Even a more forgiving reader can be distracted from your story by some detail that just doesn't fit. Every author's goal is to build a fictional world in which readers can happily lose themselves. To the extent that this world is inconsistent or unbelievable, the author will fail.

If you write only about characters who share your class, ethnicity and culture, or if you set your stories in a non-specific contemporary locale, you may not need to do much research. However, as we've discussed in previous weeks (“In Someone Else's Skin” and “Setting the Scene”), this can get pretty boring. Thinking about my own work, I find that there are four situations that dictate the need for research.

• Geographic or location-oriented research: When I'm setting a story in a specific location (as I usually do), I often research landmarks, place names, or spatial relationships. I don't need to give my readers a map, but I may need one myself in order to write convincingly.
• Cultural research: If my characters are something other than white, western, and well-educated, I need to check on things like vocabulary, slang and tone. I also need to understand the characters' assumptions, the way they look at the world and how that is different from my own perspective.
• Sexual research: There are many sexual practices that I haven't personally tried (though you might not think that from some of my previous posts!). In erotica, it is especially important to research the details of the fetish or sexual subculture you are describing. I've read many BDSM stories that struck me as ridiculous rather than arousing because the practices described were inaccurate and reflected a lack of research on the part of the author.
• Historical research: Writing in a period other than the present probably requires the most intensive research activity. Every aspect of life depends on the historical period, from costumes, food, transportation and economics to language and world view.

Some authors adore doing research. I gather that for some authors, research actually distracts them from the writing process. They get pulled deeper and deeper into the worlds they are exploring, searching for the next level of detail, putting off writing as they gather knowledge that they might not ever use.

Personally I view research as something of a necessary evil. I'll spend the time I need to answer my questions, but I am always eager to get back to the story itself. I have observed that too much research carries risks—the author feels compelled to use all the nifty information she has uncovered, and ultimately, this distracts from the story. Normally, I'll let the story itself drive my research activity. Before I begin, I'll spend some time reading about the period, the people or the practices on which I'm focusing, but then I'll stop, only returning to my search when I have a question.

Geographic research is fairly straightforward, given the resources on the Internet. I also have two shelves full of travel guidebooks which I use extensively. I'm fortunate in that I've traveled quite a lot. Frequently I'll set a story in a city or country that I've visited. Even so, I will often need to check on details. “Prey”, for example, is set in Prague, but I wrote it nearly ten years after I visited that wondrous city. I spent quite a lot of time poring over maps and trying to reconcile them with my recollections. One of my current works-in-progress, Necessary Madness, takes place in Worcester, Massachusetts and its environs. I lived in central Massachusetts for more than twenty years, but I still find that I need to jog my memory. Of course, if a tale is set somewhere that I've never visited, like Guatemala (Serpent's Kiss) or Assam, India (Monsoon Fever), I have to rely entirely on external information, supplemented by analogy with places I have been.

Cultural research is particularly tough for me. Not foreign cultures—if I've visited a place, I usually have at least a rudimentary sense of the people and how they communicate. But in capturing the subtleties of other western subcultures, I have problems. The American south, for instance, has a particular flavor of discourse. Likewise the American west. I've tried to write criminals and mafia and stuttered badly. One difficulty is the fact that you can't search directly for the kind of cultural markers that make a character seem genuine. The best way to pick them up is to actually meet an individual from that culture. The second best method is to read other people's work featuring characters from the same subculture.

Sexual research is always fun, and not too much of problem. The 'Net overflows with didactic material on various fetishes as well as content that can serve as exemplars. My story “Body Electric”, in the Yes, Sir anthology, features electric play, which I've never personally experienced. I had no trouble finding information on electric toys and the effects that they produce. Even my BDSM critic (the one who chided me over the bamboo cane) did not find fault with the result!

Historical research, of course, can go on forever. About a third of my second novel Incognito takes place in Victorian Boston. The physical environment was fairly easy; I had lived in Beacon Hill, which actually hasn't changed much since that period. However, I spent considerable time, effort and money researching costumes (Victorian clothing was extremely complex, with lots of special vocabulary), transportation, and the differences between social classes. I also read up on Victorian erotica, which was the subject of my heroine Miranda's dissertation, using Steven Marcus' encyclopedic though annoying tome The Other Victorians.

Even a historical short story requires an inordinate amount of work. “Shortest Night”, set in Shakespeare's London, took me nearly twice as long to write as a normal story, because I was working so hard to be true to the period. After all that effort, my editor still picked up a variety of words that were too modern for Elizabethan times. (I was extremely impressed.)

It's tough to get the facts right. Unfortunately, even if you do, that may not be enough. To accomplish the objective of creating a compelling, believable fictional world, an author needs more than a raft of detail. It's critical to have what I can only call a “feel” for that world—an intuitive sense of how it works and how its denizens think, feel and behave.

It's never possible to answer every research question. Sometimes I have to rely on imagination. But this only works if I can understand the people and places I am trying to portray, at a gut level. How do you acquire this sort of intuition? You won't find it on Google. For me, building a rich, nuanced picture of the world where I'm setting my story requires more personal experience. Reading original sources, including fiction, from a period can help. Visiting a museum or the actual site is a possibility. Ultimately, though, I find the process a bit mysterious.

Sometimes no amount of research will help. Several years ago I toured the ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. During the twelfth century, the city of Angkor had more than a million inhabitants. It was the largest settlement in the world. I was fascinated by the civilization that had built such impressive monuments, only to disintegrate back into a village culture, and I had an idea for a time-slip erotic romance set partially during that period.

I set about reading everything I could find about Cambodia and Angkor. I spent lots of money on books. I went to museums. I scoured the Web. Somehow, the intuitive sense of those people eluded me. I just couldn't picture them, understand who they were and how they thought. I could look up all the historical details in the many books I bought, but my imagination remained bone dry. I've shelved the project for the moment, hoping that at some point I'll have some experience that triggers the sort of comprehension and empathy that I need to be able to proceed.

Research the facts. That's the starting point, sure. But developing a sense of your world, to the point where you can trust your guesses—that's far more difficult. Ultimately, it's a kind of magic. Like creating stories in the first place.