The Perils of Precision

By Lisabet Sarai

As I’ve discussed in other blog posts, I almost always set my stories in some specific, real location. Frequently my settings strongly influence the plot and the characters. Even when they don’t, I like to be precise. I can more easily imagine the action as it unfolds when I know where it’s occurring. (Indeed, I sometimes confuse my mental images with actual memories.) I believe that anchoring my tales in space (and time) makes them more concrete, more involving and ultimately more believable.

However, this tendency to be specific introduces some risks not experienced by authors who stay vague about their settings. I need to include convincing details—and there’s always the chance I’ll get something wrong.

If I’m lucky, a beta reader or editor will pick up on my mistake. My paranormal cat shifter romance The Eyes of Bast is set Manhattan. When my husband read the manuscript, he pointed out that my heroine was taking the wrong subway line going uptown to her apartment west of Central Park. I found this annoying, since I’d actually researched this bit of information—obviously I’d interpreted the subway map incorrectly. (DH lived in New York City for more than a decade. I tend to believe him.)

Alas, DH doesn’t like BDSM stories, so often I don’t get the benefit of his sharp eyes!

Most though not all of the places I write about are places I have at least visited. On the other hand, there may be a significant time lag before I use the location in a story. I wrote Raw Silk, which was set in Bangkok, more than a decade after I’d lived there. In my recent revision of that novel (coming out in a new, expanded version in February 2016!), I fixed a number of geographic and cultural errors I didn’t notice in the first three editions. (I also provided some cues to anchor the book in an earlier time. Someone reading it now, thinking it was contemporary, would be baffled as to why none of the characters have mobile phones!)

One of the worst mistakes I’ve made (that I know about!) occurred in my second novel, Incognito, which unfolds in a historic district of Boston called Beacon Hill. I lived in Beacon Hill for a year and a half, but that was nearly five years before I wrote the book. There’s a steamy exhibitionist scene that takes place in a late night subway car. I was quite specific about the stations where the heroine gets on and off the train. Caught up in the action, though (at least, that’s my excuse), I completely forgot that a transfer is required between those two stops! Anyone familiar with the “T”, as they call it in Boston, would realize this immediately. (I was able to fix this in a recent re-edit, too.)

You may ask why any of this matters. It may be that most readers won’t notice this sort of error. However, those who do are likely to form a very negative impression of the author, as sloppy and ignorant. People tend to feel proprietary about places they know.

These days if one individual takes offense at your book, the rest of the world can find out pretty quickly. I haven’t even read FSOG, for instance, but I know from reviews and blog posts that it’s full of geographic errors (not all that surprising since it’s set in the U.S. state of Washington while the author is British).

So I do careful research when I can—but I’m not a research slut like some authors I know. I’m likely to check the Internet or the library when I’m not sure about something, but I don’t spend days immersed in my sources. Problems are most likely to arise in situations where I really believe I know some detail that’s actually wrong (or out of date).

Of course, geographically related mistakes aren’t the only sort that can occur in writing. Erotica authors, in particular, need to worry about errors in describing sexual practices. It’s a bit dangerous to write about BDSM without some serious research. I’ve read some scenes that made me want to throw the book at the wall (metaphorically) due to inaccuracies—especially, the unrealistic extremes Doms were inflicting on their subs. When it comes to sex, though, I think readers are more willing to accept distortions of reality—first because they’re looking for fantasy anyway, and second, because many of them have no experience at all with the activities described.

There’s one particularly egregious error in Raw Silk that I couldn’t figure out how to fix. My heroine Kate is “forced” by her master to perform nude in a live show in a Bangkok sex bar. She’s disguised as Asian, wearing a black wig to cover her auburn curls and make-up that hides the freckles associated with her Irish background. Everyone agrees she looks Thai. When she sheds her G-string, though, her masquerade should have been obvious—she has, after all, bright red pubic hair!

I was terribly embarrassed when my own Master pointed this out to me, many years ago, though nobody else has ever mentioned it. (Like many masters, mine is a stickler for detail.) In my recent round of edits, I decided not to mess with the problem. Any mention of the issue would distract from the intensity of the scene. And aside from having Kate be shaved (which wouldn’t fit the time period, her personality, or my personal preferences), I couldn’t think of a good solution anyway.

Fiction isn’t required to be realistic of course. Readers know this. At the same time, concrete details can increase reader involvement. Mistakes in those details, on the other hand, can yank the reader out of the narrative and generate negative emotions.

Just one more thing we authors need to worry about!

TBW

(To Be Written)

by Jean Roberta

I like writing in various genres. Like Annabeth, I'm squeamish about talking about a work-in-progress, or something I seriously plan to write in the near future, so I won't describe the book I discussed recently with a local publisher. The more distant future is a different case. I think it's useful to have a set of possibilities on paper.

For years, the Phantom Book (series of articles?) in the back of my mind was the true story of how I was treated by my family and the “mental health" profession after I tried to commit suicide after being raped at age nineteen in my dorm room in a Canadian university in 1971. (For the record, I had had consensual sex with the guy before. On the day of the event, I agreed to go to the cafeteria with him for coffee and a conversation about our relationship. I didn’t invite him to my room.)

The first male psychiatrist to whom I was assigned (as far as I knew, I had no choice) told me I had not experienced "real rape." A psychiatrist in my home town diagnosed me as a “borderline schizophrenic.” I was told that I was rebelling against my parents because of being the youngest child in my family (I was actually the oldest, and this hasn't changed). Apparently my parents were told I was on drugs. (That must have been some good stuff – I wasn’t even aware of having taken/smoked/injected any such thing.)

At this point in my life, I don’t think I will write that book. I still have relatives who would strenuously discount everything I have to say on grounds that I have always been mentally ill. They would point out that no one was ever legally charged with raping me, which presumably proves that it didn’t happen. I don’t know how my relatives could affirm that I was acting out because of youngest-child syndrome; they might just insist that I caused a lot of trouble for my good parents.

The people I would have liked to sue for professional misconduct at the time must be retired by now, and some are probably dead, as are both my parents. I have nothing to gain by writing the book except the satisfaction of seeing my truth on paper, and that might be outweighed by the drama that would result.

Luckily, I have other writing projects in mind. I know I won’t have time to tackle all of them until I retire from teaching, and maybe not even then. I also don’t know if any of the books on the following list would be publishable, but writing them would certainly give me something to do. Note that this isn’t a complete list.

Novel #1

Here is a rough synopsis of a dream that I would like to turn into the first chapter of an erotic novel.

I (female narrator) came to earth from another planet or alternative dimension in which human females function much like other mammals: we go into heat on a regular basis, and no one blames us for that. Applying ugly labels to females in heat would be like blaming them for eating food. (And who does that?) We form relationships (one-to-one or multiple), and relationship-sex usually feels different from heat-sex, but everyone on my planet knows that women occasionally need to have it with whoever is handy.

I know that human females in this world are assumed to be much different from me; in fact, some are brought up to believe that any sexual feelings they might have are a personal problem. Luckily for me, some humans understand how my tribe functions.

I’ve gone to a job interview, suitably dressed for an office job. Unfortunately, I’m in heat. The more I try to ignore or suppress it, the hornier I feel. After squirming in a chair in the waiting area for awhile, I am shown into the office of the head of Human Resources. He is a man in a suit who sounds Canadian but looks more-or-less African. He knows what it feels like to be outside the cultural mainstream, and he clearly prides himself on his knowledge of cultures outside his own. He can see at once that I am likely to be distracted during our interview if I don’t get some relief first.

Mr. Suit asks, “Is there anything I can do for you?” This is the traditional phrase used by my tribespeople to offer sex to a female in heat.

I say something like, “Oh goddess, yes.” I tear off my clothes while Mr. Suit does the same. He has a sofa in the corner, and he has a supply of condoms in a file cabinet. He lies on me, but he is not too heavy, and I’m grateful that he doesn’t tease me too long before sliding his very erect cock into me. Apparently my condition triggered an instant response in him.

Neither of us has all day to spend on this activity, so as soon as we have each come once, we put our clothes back on. He returns to his desk, and I return to the visitor’s chair in front of it. We proceed to discuss the job description and my qualifications. He promises to let me know the outcome, one way or another.

I have been volunteering at the local women’s centre which runs the sexual assault line. I find the idea of sexual assault (especially when males assault females) to be incredibly gross, partly because it makes no sense. I go into the centre on my usual day, about a week after my job interview. The co-ordinator of the volunteers asks how my day is going, and I say, “disappointing. I just learned that I didn’t get the job.”

Co-ordinator asks what I applied for, and where, so I describe the job interview. She is appalled that I was “sexually abused” by a man who seems to do this regularly to vulnerable job applicants. I point out that I was in heat. She interprets this to mean I was so desperate for the job that I would consent to anything. She advises me to contact the local Labour Standards Board to complain that Mr. Suit violated several rules of the game by coercing me into sex by promising me a job and then breaking his promise.

I am aghast. I tell Co-ordinator that making accommodations for people who are different from oneself is the height of professional behaviour, and I certainly wouldn’t want Mr. Suit to be removed from his job. In my experience, there are too few like him. I explain that one of the other job applicants must have had more impressive qualifications than mine -- and this is not a double-entendre.

Co-ordinator tells me that I need to raise my self-esteem and learn to assert myself. She points out that I have to stop worrying about being accused of racism every time I refuse inappropriate sexual advances from a “person of colour.”

If I hadn’t lived in this world as long as I have, I would have no clue what Co-ordinator is advising me to do, or why.

I really want to educate her. She really wants to educate me. We both want this to happen as soon as possible, for the good of the other person. I realize that she will never understand me until or unless she experiences heat herself. Can I help her with that? I need to try.

Novel #2

This would be a historical novel about an American heiress of the nineteenth century who was (and still is) widely considered “eccentric,” if not batshit crazy. I think she needs an advocate, or at least a reconsideration.

Sarah Pardee Winchester (1837-1922) was married to William Wirt Winchester, heir of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, founded by his father, Oliver Winchester. The “Winchester” was said to be the gun that “won” the West. As a rifle (a long-barrelled gun with spiralling grooves inside the barrel), it had a more accurate aim than those of the muskets of old. As a repeating rifle, it could fire more bullets in a short time than previous firearms.

In short, the “Winchester” was probably the deadliest hand-held weapon of its time.

Sarah had a baby girl who died within weeks. She was grief-stricken, and didn’t conceive any more children. Oliver, her father-in-law, died in 1880, followed by her husband, W.W., in 1881. This left Sarah with a fifty-percent share in a very lucrative company. She suddenly became one of the richest women of her time. And possibly the loneliest.

In 1884, Sarah moved from the industrial East to the area of what is now San Jose, California, bought a farmhouse on an acreage, and hired workmen to renovate it. According to legend, she believed that if work on her house ever stopped, she would die. Eventually, the house came to have 160 rooms, staircases that lead nowhere, and doors that open onto walls.

Sarah is said to have been too influenced by late nineteenth-century spiritualism, and a belief that the money she inherited was cursed by the spirits of all the people who were killed by Winchester rifles. Supposedly, her house was intended to be a maze to outwit the angry ghosts.

Would you feel like a member of the deserving rich if you suddenly inherited a fortune that was raised by the sale of a very efficient killing device? I wouldn’t.

The Winchester House has been a tourist attraction for years, but as far as I know, no one has written a novel about the mistress of the house. It seems overdue.

Reference Book #1

There are serious reference books on several sexual topics. (See Martha Cornog’s book on masturbation, listed here.)

www.amazon.com/The-Big-Book-Masturbation-Angst/dp/0940208296

I have a file of notes for a book on the history of anal sex, which was illegal in several European countries for centuries. (This is one of the “crimes” of the Marquis de Sade in revolutionary France – whether it was consensual or not is less clear.) “Sodomy” (from the biblical city of Sodom) has been used to refer to a spectrum of sex acts considered immoral and “unnatural” – so why is it more often understood to mean anal sex rather than, say, oral sex?

During the “burning times” or the “witch craze” (approximately 1480-1700), accused “witches” were said to be required to kiss the Devil, their Master, on his dirty bum, presumably under his tail. Was this “kiss of infamy” a euphemistic reference to something else?

Was anal sex outlawed because: 1) it can’t result in the conception of a baby, and can therefore be seen as a way to outwit “God’s plan” to overpopulate the earth? Or because: 2) it is the only form of penetration possible between two men? Or both? The term “bugger” is a corruption of “Bulgar” because Bulgarians were assumed (by non-Bulgarians) to be especially fond of this activity. Is there any historical basis for this assumption? If I would like to learn the answers, I'm sure other people would too.

Reference Book #2

When my daughter Liz was a baby, I thought of compiling a Book of Elizabeth, including brief biographies of all the famous women I could find who had that name. I still think this would be an interesting research project, with a ready-made audience: all currently-living Elizabeths, and their friends and relatives. The current Queen of England is an obvious example, along with her predecessor, Elizabeth I, as well as the late Elizabeth Taylor, but did you know that “Mother Goose” is claimed by some to have been an actual woman, Elizabeth Foster Goose (1665-1758) of Boston, Massachusetts? (Actually, this claim is doubtful. References to “Mother Goose” stories and rhymes for children occur as early as 1590, and several French writers wrote “contes de la Mere l’Oie” in the 1600s.) Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845), Quaker reformer of the horrendous English prison system of her time, and Lizzie Borden (1860-1927, American woman acquitted of killing her father and stepmother with an axe, but widely believed to have been guilty), are easier to trace. The list could get very long, especially if it includes imaginary and generic characters. ("Outside, Eliza!" was a term used in the Victorian age to get rowdy women out of pubs.)

Fixer-Uppers

I have several stories and a novel (Prairie Gothic, written in 1998, available as an e-book from Amatory Ink from 2002 to 2006, when the publisher folded) that need some revision and updating.

The fall semester at the university where I teach is approaching like a speeding truck. If I seriously want to tackle at least one thing in my TBW pile, I probably need a sabbatical and a set of deadlines.

Back in the olden days...

I am old enough (ahem) to remember research before the internet. Before Google. Before Wikipedia. We did get a taste of life without Wikipedia on Wednesday, a reminder of what it was like before that global encyclopedia of information (most of it accurate...) existed. But even then, there was still the vastness of the web to inform us. In the past decade or so, I have said more times than I can count, "What did I do before the internet?"

Well, I went to the library. A lot.

I remember the days of research in my high school library or the neighborhood public library or the local university library. I remember card catalogs with neatly typed information about each and every book in the collection. Unless someone had torn the card from the catalog. It happened a lot in my high school. Annoying.

I remember discovering books that hadn't been opened in years, the smell of their musty pages, the crinkle of yellowed paper beneath my fingers. I remember the little slip of paper in the back, stamped with the book's due date. I remember marveling at being the first person to check out a book in 10 years. Or 20 years, even.

Libraries still exist, of course. And kids actually still do research the old fashioned way--using books. (Though the card catalog is now a computer in most instances.) I started working in the children's room of the public library in 2001 and in the nearly five years I was there, I helped many students find information in books. More times than I can count, I heard them say, "Why do I have to look it up in a book when I can find it on the internet?"

Why, indeed.

As a writer, editor, avid reader and perpetual student who would love to get another degree (or two), I love research. (Usually.) I also love books. But I have found myself wondering a lot in the past several years if doing research the old fashioned way has become obsolete. The last time I did library research--including checking out books and periodicals--was when I was finishing my Masters program in 2007. All of my writing research since then has been on the internet.

I miss the library, I really do. I miss the experience of discovering old books or stumbling over new topics in the quest for information on something else entirely. I miss the adventure of that kind of research, for lack of a better word. That moment of "Yes!" when I find something that is exactly what I need.

And yet...

Google is god, isn't it? The entire world at my fingertips. Everything. Anything. Wikipedia covers nearly every subject. Snopes covers nearly everything that's ever been rumored, even those things that happened pre-internet. (Spiders in cacti, tiny dogs that turn out to be rats). The Erotica Readers and Writers Association provides information about nearly everything that relates to my genre of choice. WebMD, Baby Center, Publishers Marketplace, Amazon, CNN, BBC-- they're all in my recent history. Research, research, research. Every newspaper, every magazine and yes, nearly every book, can be found on the internet. I don't have to leave home, I don't have to leave my bed. Hell, I don't even need a computer anymore--my smartphone is an instant tool for the research that used to take hours or days.

I still miss the library. It's a part of my history, my identity. I don't think the current generation has the same connection to the library, because libraries are now multi-media centers with banks of computers front and center and books relegated to the back shelves. But the books are still there, growing older and mustier (until they're taken out of circulation), still available, still full of information. Still an adventure waiting to happen.

My Favorite Kind of Research

By Lisabet Sarai

When it comes to research, I'm a bit lazy. Occasionally I'll get bitten by the research bug and spend a bunch of money on books – I dropped nearly a hundred bucks on material about Mayan mythology and culture when I was working on Serpent's Kiss – but usually I'm content with relatively superficial visits to Google or Wikipedia to answer my factual questions. It helps that I don't tend to write much historical fiction. My few attempts in that genre have confirmed my expectations that it's a huge amount of work! No, I have to admit, I'll coast if I can, trusting my imagination and my intuitions when a more scrupulous author would be hitting the reference department.

There's one area, though, where I'm willing to do almost unlimited explorations in the interest of verisimilitude – preferably going to the original source – and that's my settings.

Anyone who's read much of my fiction (all three of you!) knows I often set my stories in foreign destinations. That's merely a symptom of the fact that travel is quite my literally passion. I've probably already shared the story of how my husband seduced me with tales of his adventures in Paris, Instanbul and Bali. Sex, love and travel totally intermix in my mind and my memories. So perhaps it's not surprising that I get story ideas when I'm on one of our international jaunts.

My very first published short story, “Glass House”, draws heavily on my experiences in Prague a few years before I wrote it. Even now, a decade later, rereading it brings back the weird, almost absurd beauty of that venerable city, the edgy, offbeat magic that infects its cobblestone streets and stone bridges, soaring cathedrals and basement pubs.

******

“Let us walk down to the river,” he says, bringing me back to the present. “It is nearly sunset. And there is something that I would like to show you.”

We make our way westward toward the Vltava, in companionable silence. I am struck by the fact that, after all, I do trust Lukaš. For all his swaggering and sexual innuendo, he has treated me with respect. I know how easily he could have taken advantage of me; he probably knows it, too. Somehow, though I have told him nothing, he also senses my conflicts. He knows without being told that I am not free.

Clouds stained by the sunset heap high over the water, which flows gray and smooth like molten lead. Vermilion, ocher, coral, azure: ordinary color names do not apply to these flowing, burning shapes.

Against this multicolored background the spires and towers of Prague Castle on its crag across the river are fairytale silhouettes. For a long time, I simply stare, as the forms merge and change in the dying light. When I finally remember Lukaš, I see he is grinning again, as if he could take credit for this spectacular display.

“Is this what you wanted to show me? It is wonderful!”

“Not exactly. Look across the street.”

The first thing I see is a massive rococo building of yellow stucco, dripping with ornamentation and topped by an onion dome. Then I see the building beside it, and stop short.

It is totally fantastic, whimsical, and bizarre. It began as an ordinary, modern office building, with square windows and a flat roof, facing the river across Smetanova Street. But grafted onto this edifice is a second building, all of glass, shaped like an asymmetric egg timer and leaning at a crazy angle against the staid office block. The sunset colors reflect in its multifaceted façade, so that the building seems to shift and move.

*****

Then there's Amsterdam. I've been there several times, but six or seven years ago we spent an entire week in a tiny guesthouse just around the corner from the train station. Something kept drawing me back to the red light district – maybe the fact my previous visits were prior to my rebirth as an erotica author. I found myself fascinated by the women in the narrow, rose-lit windows, wondering what their lives might be like. The experience ultimately produced my BDSM tale “Shades of Red”.

*****

I've been obsessed ever since last night, when Jane and I wandered through the red light district, staring at the women who waited behind the glass in their rose-tinted rooms. We wove our way through clumps of nervous, intoxicated men who were all staring, too. I could smell their sweat, underneath the beer and the pot smoke. I could feel their lust. It infected me.

They barely noticed us, two teenagers in jeans, although the tight denim in my crotch was so wet, I half-expected they'd catch my scent and turn to me. They had eyes only for the bodies displayed in the rows of windows lining the canals.

Some of the women were ripe, blond, Slavic-looking, their breasts exploding out of their lace brassieres. Others were slight, deliberately child-like in Gidget-inspired bikinis or brief plaid kilts. There was a Brazilian beauty with golden skin and coffee-colored eyes; a voluptuous African princess with strings of ruby-hued beads dangling in her ebony cleavage; a serious-looking brunette wearing dark-framed glasses who sat, shapely legs crossed, like a secretary waiting to take dictation.

Some of the women posed. Others danced suggestively, or made lewd gestures at their prospective customers. There were masked women in leather, snapping riding crops against their boots. There were women whose pierced nipples and labia showed clearly through their translucent garments.

Men clustered around the dimly-lit windows like moths hovering by a candle. Mostly they'd just look, inflamed by the mere thought of all this available flesh. Sometimes I'd see a hushed conversation through a half open glass door. Such conversations might end with the man turning away, disappointed, rejected, or perhaps simply unwilling to pay the asking price. Other times the door would open wider, just enough to admit the supplicant. Then it would close and the red velvet curtains would be drawn, hiding the rest of the dance.

Those curtained windows drew me. I couldn't stop imagining what might be going on behind them. I knew it was a straight commercial transaction in most cases, a workman-like blowjob, or a quick, bored fuck. Still, I imagined occasional revelations, epiphanies, ecstasies -- meetings of strangers pre-destined to be lovers, brief but unbearably intense conflagrations of lust, lewd and mystical connections that would live in his memory, or hers, long after the curtains were flung open again.

I'm nineteen. I've had enjoyable but ultimately frustrating sex with two boys my age. I know that, practical as I am, I'm a bit of a romantic. Otherwise, I would not have continued to roam the red-lit alleys long after Jane gave up and went back to the hotel in disgust. As the Oude Kerk chimed two AM, I wandered up Molensteeg and down Monnikenstraat like some horny ghost. The crowds had thinned. The curtains were mostly drawn. Some of open windows were empty. Next to them were the signs: KAMERS TE HUUR. Windows for rent.

*****

I remember those church bells, ringing through the damp, mostly deserted Amsterdam streets. I just had to capture them in a story.

Then of course there's Bangkok, familiar and yet ever strange after two years of living there and many visits since. I was there not long ago. The city's changing – there are more skyscrapers now, and everyone including the beggars has a cell phone – but the description I wrote nearly a decade ago, in “Butterfly” is still pretty accurate. Except for their piercings and tattoos, the bar girls haven't changed much...

*****

One of my mates, Charlie, knew the city well. He checked us into a comfortable, ridiculously cheap hotel in the middle of the tourist district. Bewildered and dazzled, I followed him along sidewalks crammed with vendors hawking watches, tee shirts and toys, trying to avoid tripping on the broken pavement.

Beggars with shriveled limbs extended their bowls in silent entreaty. Blond, ragged-haired tourists in shorts and sandals, slender Thai women in tight jeans and silk blouses, monks draped in saffron, policemen standing stiffly at corners, their revolvers prominently displayed: it seemed that the whole of the Bangkok was here on this one street. Meanwhile, an endless line of vehicles crawled by us: tint-windowed Mercedes, sooty trucks, and rickety buses with people hanging out the doors. The air was heavy with diesel fumes, frying garlic, and jasmine. We dined at a quiet restaurant on a side lane, where the young waitress giggled every time we spoke to her. Then Charlie took me off to see what he called "the real Bangkok" - the go-go bars and sex clubs.

We sauntered into the "entertainment plaza". Three stories of indoor bars and clubs surrounded a central court, which was crowded with open-air bars and stalls selling skewers of grilled chicken, fresh fruit, and fried locusts. As we walked along the second-level balcony, bikini-clad girls tried to lure us inside their establishments.

<"Come inside," they crooned. "One beer fifty baht. No cover charge." Briefly, the woman would hold back the dark cloth draping the door, offering a tantalizing glimpse of flickering lights and bare flesh. "Take a look, no charge, come inside."

The more energetic of these young marketeers would grab us by the hand, and laughing the whole while, try to pull us in. It was all good-natured, though. We'd extricate ourselves from her strong fingers and thank her. "Not now," we'd say. "Maybe later."

"Why not now?" she'd say, stamping her foot in mock anger. "Don't you like me?"

*****

I've been lots of places I haven't written yet. There are stories inside me set in Instanbul, in Tokyo, in Lisbon. I'm sure they'll find their way out eventually. Of course, sometimes I'll want to set one of my tales somewhere I haven't traveled (at least not yet). Then I do have to do some research – but it's a pleasure.

A few months ago I wrote a short story that takes place in Varanasi (Benares), India. My one trip to India didn't take me anywhere near that ancient, sacred center. I spent delightful hours pouring over websites, gazing at maps, trying to grasp a sense of the place. I don't know if I succeeded (I haven't heard yet whether the tale has been accepted), but I'll tell you one thing: I've added the place to my (all too long) travel wish list!

Tasting the Moment: the seduction of detail

by Anneke Jacob

I can’t find the link. Someone – I think it was Barbara Kingsolver – mentioned the importance of getting the details right. She said that when the second full moon appeared in the sky two weeks after the first, it was time to put the book down.

At least, I think that’s what she said. I can’t find the quote. And my urge for accuracy is playing me up, nagging at me like weeds in my neglected garden. I’ve now spent way longer looking for that quote than actually writing this piece about research. Which just might have something to do with why it took me five years to write my latest novel. It’s always easier to rummage through six pages of Google returns for an obscure factual detail than it is to grapple with your plot.

But it’s those perfect details – the right object, the genuine street corner – that draw us into the narrative. Sound and speech rhythms fall just so. Thick frost covers the Creamsicles at the corner store, and scrapes and burns our questing fingers. The texture of flesh fits our hand; we inhale its odours of secret sweat, sunscreen, a faint hint of cardamom.

A whole world can be imagined or hinted at with the right touches here and there. Language and sex are closely related: sound and rhythm, engaging both the tongue and the brain. It’s the sensory feasts, those moments I can taste, that I’ll go back and read again and again.

And just like bad grammar and typos, factual errors make readers stumble and fall out of the world into which we’ve carefully coaxed them. “Oh, yeah, right!” I hear them saying. “Nobody talks like that!” “No one’s body does that unless they work for Cirque du Soleil!” “Why, that equipment would be ruined if you treated it like that!”

Where was that site on leather care…?

Of course when the web isn’t enough you have to search for other sources. Expert readers are like gold. It was actually Dee Luvbight who pointed out that I was letting the leather get wet.

But try getting expert advice when you can’t explain why you’re asking. I write bdsm erotica. The dom in my latest novel, As She’s Told, is a builder. This meant our renovator neighbour answered an oh-so-casual question or two. Anders, the dom, is a Dane (okay, I have a thing for tall, rangy blond guys; can you blame me?) and getting the odd Danish phrase just right took some doing. I put out SOS cries for Danes on kinky newsgroups. Then I discovered a multiple language-help site, where I had to attribute my search for the plural of “thrall” to the writing of a historical novel. They also provided the truth about Danish sea shanties, free of charge.

Now, you might suggest that I was going overboard for the sake of an unlikely audience of a few Danes. Just a tad obsessive? You bet. “Enough!” I sometimes told myself. “How many readers from that small European nation do you think will come across your book?” But within a month of publication I heard from two Danish readers, and they weren’t complaining about word usage! Whew!

I wish Dick Francis had had at least one Canadian reader/editor before he published The Edge. (And by the way, I googled that title instead of walking upstairs to find the book. Is that research or what?) The book’s largely set in Canada, and wouldn’t you know it, there’s a character whose every phrase ends in “eh.” But Englishisms like “plait” and “chap” just slide off Canadian tongues. It’s pretty funny. The book is still a fine one, but it would have been even better if Francis had done his homework.

A short turnaround time for prose must be hell for errors. Okay, I’ll admit it; five years working on a book is too long. But at least I had time to fix things. Visualize Maia, my poor frustrated heroine, teased to distraction, dreaming in a Toronto streetcar. She wakes up to find that the streetcar has short-turned down Bay and has taken her all the way to City Hall. She’s heading the wrong way! And she’s not allowed to be late! In a panic she gets off and runs north again.

Wait a minute. Do streetcars run on Bay? The next time I was in the neighbourhood I checked it out. No streetcars. It turns out they stopped running them on that part of Bay Street in 1975. Oops. I shifted the short-turn to Dundas and all its traffic, and instead of dodging suits on Bay, Maia dodges excruciatingly slow elderly shoppers on Spadina. In the end, an even better scene. And Toronto Transit aficionados are not pulled from the narrative to check the publication date and shake their heads.

In five years the quiet nighttime negotiation scene shifted locations three times, as the street I thought would be a fine space for private conversation filled up with rowdy clubs. City politics changed its flavour, so my background details changed, too. And I know far more about Danish Christmas traditions than anyone but a Dane should know.

Construction details can carry their own allure. Here’s an early scene from As She’s Told in which Anders gives Maia a tour of the work he’s doing on his own house:

The house all looked pretty deconstructed; I had a hard time visualizing the surfaces freed of their layers of old paint and linoleum and construction debris. His long, self-assured body kept distracting me, moving ahead through the splintery shadows, leading me with a hard hand on my wrist. The resinous smells of cut wood were powerfully like the smell he carried about with him, and made me want very badly to get under his clothes. There was a fireplace, or at least the outer portion, in amongst the lumber in the basement, a rather beautiful art deco design in honey-coloured wood. But the mantelpiece was missing.

“It’s by Roberts, out of a series of midtown apartments from the early thirties. Which were taken down in the seventies when they were flattening anything with character. Sooner or later I’ll find the mantelpiece, and then I’ll put it in. Look at this carving.” He ran his fingers through symmetrical grooves. Suddenly I could feel those fingers in my own grooves. He gave me a long look over his shoulder, and his smile stripped me bare. Slowly he stepped over to me and ran his hands down my body. I leaned my head on his chest, and let the moan loose. “You’ll be installed yourself, soon enough, girl,” he murmured. A glance at his watch. “You have work to do; let’s get you back.”

There really was a Roberts creating Art Deco in the early 30’s in Toronto. But not all my research reflects reality. Some of it is mined out of my head. My first book was set on another planet; if I needed technology I made it so. And according to one reader, doms are surely searching Home Depot even as we speak, in vain for the hardware that arose from my evil and inventive brain. Details can be so seductive.

*****

Anneke Jacob is the author of As She’s Told, winner of the National Leather Association’s Pauline Réage Novel Award (Pink Flamingo, 2008), and Owned and Owner (republished by Pink Flamingo in 2009). Visit her website: www.tpe.com/~anneke.

What Every Writer Should Know

Everybody has talked this week about various aspects of doing research for a story. History, geography, social customs and culture... all of these play an important role when writing a story that draws on factual information.

But what about after the story is written? After you've written your tale, edited it and polished it and you're ready to send it out for publication? Is it time to kick back and take a break?

Oh hell no!

This is the hard truth of writing. The research is never done. At every stage of the story -- before, during, and after the writing -- you have to be ready to go digging for those crucial facts. Not just the ones that determine the setting and costumes, the dialog and plot, but also those that determine the sale and promotion of your work. Let's take a look at just a few things every writer ought to know about, but quite possibly don't.

Let's start with researching available markets. You might think this was pretty obvious, but you'd be amazed at how many writers don't know this. The first thing you need to do before you send your story out for submission is figure out who's actually buying what you're selling. While there are plenty of publishers out there, only so many of them are looking for stories in your particular genre, and those publishers may only publish a specific sub-genre of what you write. For instance, I write sci-fi erotica, but not every erotica publisher wants stories with a sci-fi twist. Do a search online, using the words 'submission guidelines' and your genre to get a list of publishers you can submit to. Learn who wants short stories and who wants full length novels, who's taking poetry and who only wants non-fiction articles. It's not hard, and it'll save you a lot of time on the road to getting published.

Once you've got those guidelines, you might notice that the publisher requires your story be formatted in 10 point Times New Roman, with 1 inch margins all around and double line spacing. Great! But you formatted your story in 12 point Courier, with 3/4 inch margins and single line spacing. Do you know how to change the formating to what the publisher wants? Can you do it in a way that doesn't take twenty hours of your precious time and somehow completely screw up the document in the process? No? Time for a little research. Dig out the user manual that came with your word processor, or go online and see if there are any tutorials available to help you out. Because it would really suck if your wonderful story got rejected for bad or improper formatting.

Okay, you've got a market. You've formatted your story correctly and sent it off. And the publisher loves your work! They're sending you a contract! They want to buy your First North American rights! And there's this clause about a Right of First Refusal... uh, what the hell does all that mean? And how much is a 35% royalty anyway? What does Print On Demand mean? Does that mean the book will actually be available in bookstores, or not? The legalize that shows up in a publishing contract is probably the biggest area where good writers fail to do proper research. Do you know what rights to your work you're signing away? Do you understand what format the book will be published in? Or are you just so happy to have a contract, any contract, that you don't care about any of this stuff? You should care! Bad things happen to authors who don't understand the contracts they sign, so take a few days to research what the various clauses of your contract mean. Read the whole thing. Twice! If you don't understand what the contract says, look it up!

Once you've done your research on your contract, there are further surprises waiting for you. In this day and age of digital publishing, the author takes on the lion's share of promotion. Do you know how to do that? What are the tools available to you to get the word out about your book? Which is going to work better for you - a Live Journal page or a Word Press blog? Have you got a Twitter account? Do you know how to feed it into Facebook? Do you have a Yahoo group or a newsletter? Do you know how to set one up?

You might think I'm going overboard here, but I assure you, I'm not. Ever since I first set out to publish my writing, I've done constant research on all the things I've listed above. I've scoured the net for markets, devoured entire how-to manuals on my word processor, and I'm constantly learning how to deal with this gadget or that widget to help out with my promo. It's a never ending job, researching the business side of writing. But if you're going to be a professional writer, then it's something you need to accept, and even learn to like, to succeed.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I just downloaded some new blogging software, and I need to do some research before I try using it this weekend. And I've got a story I need to look up a few things on, and a contract to look over, and...

Oh, you know.

See ya later };)

Research

Research is possibly one of the most fascinating elements about being an author.

I’m not just talking about the fun side of research for erotic fiction. Obviously it’s satisfying to ask: so how many orgasm can a man have between cups of coffee? (The answer is 9. I’ve checked this twice). Obviously there is a lot of pleasure to be had from discovering answers to questions like: who makes the sandwiches during the intermission of a threeway? (It turns out that the man is expected to do this). Admittedly, the sexual side of research is endless fun. However, moving this topic briefly away from my genitals, I was referring to the more practical elements of research such as location.

Like others have said before me this week, research can be addictive and time-consuming. I’m a voracious reader and so I can spend too many hours (when I should be writing) happily reading about the place where my story is set. A part of me wants to believe that this is necessary research, and I’m absorbing the atmosphere of the story world through some sort of textual osmosis. However, whilst it’s possible that may be true, I always feel as though I’m really just goofing off.

Is this sort of research necessary? That depends on the writer and their intended reader.

I recently read the first 40 pages of J Carrell’s The Shakespeare Secret. This is not an erotic novel. On the back cover blurb it mentions a ‘deadly serial killer’ which had me wondering what other sorts of serial killer there were besides deadly ones. Cuddly serial killers? Jovial serial killers?

The opening of The Shakespeare Secret is set in London. I don’t know if it goes to a different location after that opening. I lost interest in those first 40 pages and couldn’t be bothered to read the rest. The book itself is not badly written, but the research is so intrusive it repeatedly detracts from the story. There are stretches of description that are little more than a list of street names. I don’t doubt that they’re the correct street names for that part of London and the journey that the protagonist is following. I’m sure J Carrell has researched this route thoroughly. But street names add sod all to a story and a list of them only ever belongs at the bottom of a map, followed by an appropriate reference number.

In contrast, I’ve read works that the legendary Lisabet Sarai has placed in Bangok and the UK. Lisabet includes description as a natural part of the story and so it never comes across as a forced list of street names or a glossary of important monuments/locations from a second-hand tourist guide book.

Perhaps the lesson to be taken from this is that it’s not about how much a writer researches but how cleverly they use it to colour the story world they create?

In my own work I seldom use specific locations. However, when I do, the research is always as thorough as my budget will allow.

For my trilogy of vampire stories I made the mistake of writing a proposal that said the stories were set in Rome, Paris and London. This meant I had to learn a lot about three cities that I’d never visited.

Visiting all of the cities was never an option. I’m a writer and some days I don’t have the bus fare to get out of bed. However, with a reliable internet connection and a handful of travel brochures I was able to find out more about the location of my stories. I then spoke to friends who had visited the three cities and asked them about the places. It is possibly the first time in my life I have ever said to someone, “Please could I see your holiday photographs?” Unless another research project comes up, it will certainly be the last time I utter those fateful words.

Was this second-hand information useful?

I spoke to one friend who told me about the Rome he had visited. He said the most remarkable thing he remembered from his holiday was the tangibility of the ancient artefacts. There were crumbling pieces of masonry, and the remnants of fallen pillars, standing by the sides of roads on the city’s outskirts.

Here, in the UK, we’re more used to such pieces of ancient heritage being in museums and locked out of reach. But my Rome-visiting friend explained that these were pieces of history that could be touched as you walked in the Mediterranean sun. It was a piece of background detail that gave me an overwhelming sense of the city’s history.

Another colleague told me that the thing she most remembered about Rome was the puzzle of the one-wheeled bicycles. On every street corner she visited, there were bicycles: chained to the walls but with their front wheels missing. It was a puzzle that perplexed her for the first week of a fortnight stay in the city.

Eventually, she discovered the cause of this peculiar phenomena. To keep their bicycles secure, it was popular during my friend's visit for cyclists to chain the cycle frames to appropriate fixtures but remove the front wheel.

Was this useful to my story? It’s neither erotic not a useable detail that could colour the plot. However, it added to the sense of strangeness I was wanting to develop – the sense of my characters being in a foreign and unfamiliar land. In that regard, I couldn’t think of anything more strange than to wander around a city of one-wheeled bicycles where anyone can lay their hand on a piece of ancient history.

All of which is my way of saying that research – whether it’s reading, surfing, making sandwiches at a threeway, or simply talking to friends – is an essential part of creating a credible story.

Language, Location, Customs and Slang!

by Jude Mason

Readers might thing writing erotica or romance is easy. Yup, just come up with a sexy afternoon where hubby and the wife sneak off to the bedroom for some fantasy horseplay (ahem!) and write it all down. Want something longer, easy-peasy, extend the session into a long weekend and voila, you have a novel!

If only it was that easy.

Hell, if it was that easy, anyone reading this, or anywhere in the country, could create their own book and then where would I be? Gasp!

When I really took up writing as a career, it was almost that easy for me. I concentrated my efforts around the area here and wrote about things I was at least familiar with. The stories were fun, the plots thin, and the readership next to zip. Oh, there were a few friends who were kind enough to read the short stories and who commented kindly, but no real readers.

First publisher cleared all that up for me, in one hell of a hurry. I needed a plot. I needed to get into my characters. I needed to travel and do things--or my characters did. Some of it was still something I found relatively easy. I've always been able to fall into my characters, but actually getting a plot moving took a little time. Deciding on what to do, well that took even more time.

First novel, a pony boy epic that I had to research. What the Hell! I adored the characters. I loved the plot. I was gah gah over the genre. But, what would a backwoods Canuck know about pony boy or the training of them, or the gear? Not much.

Online was the answer. I mean it's not a topic you can just bring up with the local Fish and Wildlife Association is it? We might have an equestrian club somewhere in the area, but I truly doubted if they'd be able to help me with this. I actually knew a lot about horses and tack, but converting it to people was a challenge. I also found out that the horse fetish seemed to lean more towards women being the animal, men being the trainer. WTF! Google it, you'll see.

I did luck out and found one couple who would actually discuss it with me. He was her horse, and very proud of himself for it. He was one hell of a brute, but from what his wife/trainer said, easy to handle. *G*

That might not be the kind of research most authors do, but it definitely worked for me and has worked for other books. Not so much digging for the written page, but finding people who are willing to share information.

Years after the pony boy book, I delved into the vampire genre. I wrote two books of a possible trilogy before the publisher folded. The first book took place in the US and was fairly easy to write. I did little research, but the way the book unfolded it wasn't necessary. The second book was a completely different story. I was urged to take my vamps to Britain. Now, I'm of Brit decent, but I've never actually been there, and the place I wanted to take my vamps to, well, it's not a place I'd have visited even if I had traveled there. Sigh.

Yes, I did some Googling. A lot of it. I also have a very good friend who lives fairly close to the place I'd chosen. Truth be told, it was his idea to take my vamps there. Whitby has a rich history of vampires and ghosts. It was the perfect place. An old Abbey, some very cool ruins and a graveyard that'd make the hair raise on the back of your neck and a dark and stormy night... oh my! It was perfect!

I had my friend visit Whitby with his camera twice. I had him and his wife traipsing up the 99 steps and visiting pubs, measuring how big things were, naming streets for me, you name it, I put the poor man through. It was GREAT! I also found a forum of ghost hunters in Whitby who were more than happy to help me if I needed it. I did. I wanted to have my vamps chase along the top of the cliffs and needed to know if it was possible. They were only too happy to help. Seems people love to help out a struggling author. *G*

The book came out and I was ecstatic. It did well, for the short time it was out. The publishing house folded and I was done.

The story here is, if the book you're working on, and it doesn't matter if you're writing fetish, kink, love stories or the greatest epic every told, if you don't know something, you'd better be prepared to find out about it. If you fake it, chances are you'll be fine, but there's always the chance a reader will call you on it. I've heard of that happening to some of the big romance writers. The smart ones admit they messed up and thank whoever confronted them. The ditzes puff out their chest's and refuse to admit they didn't do their research well enough.

More recently, Jenna Byrnes and I worked on a series of changeling books. Both of us were fairly familiar with some of the lore, but not all of it. Add that we used three, then four different animals, and we needed to cover our butts by knowing something about them. We also had to make sure the flora and fauna worked, we didn't use plants from two completely different areas, things like that. Untamed Hearts has been doing incredibly well, our wolves, bears and cougars have gotten rave reviews and so far, touching wood, we haven't been called on anything we included in the books. In fact, they've done so well, our publisher is afer us to add to the series and we're now working on Stallion's Pride.

In one of my upcoming releases, I decided to go native, literally. I took my modern day hunk and dropped him into the local area before the white man's arrival. The research for this was incredible and I found myself easily side tracked and found websites where the language was actually spoken. Course writing it was an interesting challenge, but it was fun too. LOL Finding Home, will come out later this year and I'm really looking forward to seeing if I did my homework well. It's gratifying when you know you did well.

So, for those of you who think romance or erotica author have it easy, think again. We do the same kind of research as any novelist, plus we have to be able to take the readers into the most intimate places with ease. Perhaps the next time someone asks me why I don't try writing something more serious, I'll simply ask them to write a pony boy story, or even a sensual spanking. What do you think? Could you do it?

It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.

By Jenna Byrnes

Research can be so tedious. Long hours spent on the computer, checking and double checking facts.

I digress... which I do easily, when I'm researching online. It doesn't take much at all for me to wind up looking at pictures when I'm supposed to be checking facts. Not just those pictures. Lighthouses, inns, prisons, small towns, names -- I love looking through lists of names!

I think back to the olden days when a person had to go to the public library to look something up. I used to digress there, too, wandering up and down the aisles looking for titles that piqued my interest. I stumbled upon Go Ask Alice at the library, and I must have read it a dozen times or more. What that has to do with this post, I have no idea. My mind associates it with the library, I guess. I continue to digress, and yes, I like that word.

Before we had the library, most of my research was done in the set of encyclopedias my parents bought--or should I say, started to buy. The version in my house ended when JFK was president, so I had to guess about anything that happened after 1962-ish. The books were better than nothing, and I remember thinking my family was lucky to even have them.

The internet has made 'research' more accessible to the masses. Of course, you have to know what to believe (If it's on Wiki, it must be true?) And you have to know where to look. Occasionally when I get a little too technical with my keywords, I open up a whole nother world of stuff I might never have known existed. Sometimes, I use that back button on the browser and scoot right out of there. But sometimes, like a train wreck, I just have to look. Before I know it, my writing time is over, and not a lot has been accomplished.

Bottom line, research is not my favorite pastime. I do what I have to do, but try not to get mired down in the muck.

*sigh*

Sticking your toe (or anything else) in the BDSM waters

This week Oh, Get a Grip! welcomes Desiree Holt to share her thoughts on Writing BDSM:

I have to say that for most of my years, my sex life could be classified as vanilla with a hefty dose of cinnamon—all the things on the vanilla to do list but with a heavy dose of spice. Even when I married Hubby Number Two, my very own cowboy hunk who is the model for alpha males, we added some hot pepper—okay, a lot of hot pepper—but I wasn’t writing erotic romance then. Play, I wasn’t writing anything then!. So those parts of our relationships that fit into BDSM were—just parts of our relationship.

Then, a few years ago, I read my first book by a BDSM author and I thought, OMG! Where have I been all my life? Not only was it a beautiful story about a relationship, it depicted the BDSM lifestyle in such a manner that I became a shopaholic—I combed epublishers for BDSM books.

Okay, okay, call me obsessed. And no, he doesn’t cuff me and spank me naked on the front porch, or decide to put on nipple rings in the middle of the grocery store. And we’ve had to find a balance in our relationship because we are both very, very strong personalities, and submission does not come naturally to me.

But as I began writing BDSM, like everything else I write I wanted to do my research so I would not depict the lifestyle in a manner insulting to those who live it. There are many, many really good sites on the Internet that give you a lot of information about the lifestyle, and really explain the emotional side of it.

Then I took a leap of faith, joined a chat room (using a screen name) and explained who and what I was. I got very lucky. Two people have become my online friends, willingly answering questions for me as long as they have a guarantee of anonymity and respect.

I’ve learned a lot about them—and about myself. I learned that the D/s relationship is all about sharing and caring. That the Dom provides and tremendous sense of emotional security for his sub, and at the same time the sub is as much in control because her submission is the source of his pleasure. I learned how to establish a give and take when there are strong personalities to establish a balance.

And I learned that whether you are totally into the BDSM lifestyle or just enjoy parts of it, those parts can enhance your life beyond anything you can imagine.

I began to reach a point where BDSM is a part of the relationship in ninety percent of the books I write. The extent to which it plays a part really depends on my, characters, but it’s always there. And the more I write about it, the more I understand my own feelings, and realize that in every Dom there is a hint of a submissive, and in every sub there is a hint of the Dom.

It’s one of those things where I want to tell people, who ask me how I can write about it—don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Any portion of it.

So if you want to try one new thing today, or this week, or this month. Pick up a book by an author who writes about The Life and you’ll discover you’re really in for a treat.

Go on. Stick your toe-or any other part of your body-in the BDSM waters and see what happens.

Come visit me at http://www.desireeholt.com/ www.bookswelove.net/holt.html www.myspace.com/judithdesiree

I love to hear from people.

***************************************

Letting Go

by Desiree Holt.

Blurb:

For Kari Loftin life was all about control, in every aspect of it. But she realized that at forty two she had managed to shut out every form of pleasure b y keeping a tight rein on herself. With her beloved Cubs on a winning streak, she tossed away her control for one night and ventured into the world of Petey’s Sports Bar. Little did she expect to meet a hot young stud like Riley Tucker, who showed her a side of herself she’d never dared to explore. One night together and Riley wanted more. Much more. Could Kari get past the age difference—something that didn’t seem to bother Riley at all?

Excerpt:

He settled his hands, big and warm, on her shoulders, the heat from them burning through her t-shirt. While she watched with wide eyes he bent his head and licked her lips. Just a very, very light sweep of the tip of his tongue but she felt it all the way through her breasts to her womb. Heat crept over her skin and the beat of her heart tripped over itself.

“Mmm, good.” He licked his own lips, then slid his hands up to cup her face. “I knew you’d taste delicious.”

His mouth came down on hers again, his lips like rough velvet. She was sure he’d be the kind to attack voraciously but instead he seduced her mouth. He nibbled at each lip, his teeth teasing around the shape of her mouth, his tongue touching each tiny bite. He rubbed his lips against hers, then drew in her bottom lip and sucked on it gently.

Her bones felt like wax and more liquid soaked her panties. She felt as if she was suspended in space, attached only to his wonderful mouth.

When his tongue pressed against the seam of her closed mouth she opened with a sigh and thought how good he tasted. It swept inside, pleasantly shocking her as it stirred the nerves on every inner surface. Not an inch was left untouched—the roof of her mouth, the insides of her teeth and her cheeks, the pebbled surface of her own tongue. Tentatively she stretched it out to touch his and in seconds they were tangled together.

He kissed even better than he looked. She couldn’t breathe. Every bit of air was trapped in her throat. She lifted her hands and wrapped her fingers around his wrists, not to pull him away but to hold him in place. Her brain felt fuzzy, her body weightless and she wanted this kiss to go on forever.

Then a switch snapped on in her head and she tore her mouth away from his. Inbred insecurity reared its head and skittered along her spine.

“Wait,” she gasped. “Wait, wait, wait.”

He lifted his head and took a step back. “For what? What’s wrong, Kari”

“I have to tell you something. Please.”

He frowned at her. “Like what? You’re married?” He lifted her left hand, the ring finger glaringly bare. “No ring, unless you’re one of those liberated women who doesn’t think they’re necessary.”

“No, no.” She yanked her hand back. “It’s not that.”

“So what else could it be? You’re really a man who loves cross-dressing? Hell, I think it would be very hard to fake luscious breasts like those.” He skimmed the palm of one hand over her. “Yup. Real and made for touching.”

She took a step backward, wet her lips and let out a breath. “I’m forty-two.”

Riley stared at her, confused. “And?”

Why is he being so stupid? And why did I come upstairs with a man eleven years younger than me?

“I’m forty-two years old,” she practically shouted. Get it out now and get it over with.

“And that’s a problem how? I’m sorry. I don’t get it.”

She clenched her fists in frustration. Why wouldn’t he understand. “How old are you, Riley? Thirty? Thirty-one?”

He shocked her by bursting out laughing. “Jesus, Kari. For a minute you had me scared there. I thought there was a real problem.”

Author Responsibility

So you write a book. It’s fiction right? You can write whatever you want, right? Have your characters do whatever they want? Well, not exactly.

For many of us, our books are based in reality. I’m not saying that we’re rewriting true stories and touting them as fiction. I am saying that many of us are dealing with “people” who we’re sending out into the human race. We need to pay attention to the laws of reality. I think every author has two overriding responsibilities: research and safety.

We have to research? People know this is fiction. Can’t we take creative license? Well, mostly…no. If you want to write people living in a real-life society, you need to know history. You need to know how things work. You need to know laws. You need to know the actual lay of the land. Not only will it add flavour to your book, but there will always be someone to tell you a “2005 Taurus doesn’t have that option” or that the word gay to designate a male-male relationship didn’t come into use until the early 1900s, in fact meaning a womanizing man as recently as the 17th century. Therefore your character in 1352 wouldn’t use it in that context. (Yes, if you write historical books, you must be conscious of word origins)

If you want to be a credible author, you’ll know your facts. This leads me to the other half of what I call author responsibility. Safety. Some of us write some edgy subjects. A lot of us write steamy sex, but just because we write fiction doesn’t mean a reader won’t read something we write and think it would be a good idea to try. Heck, I have. Why wouldn’t someone else? As many of you know, I write a lot of BDSM novels. Everything I write has to go on the page with an eye to safety. Safe, sane and consensual is the BDSM credo, but it should be the credo of romance writers, too. Don’t write something that could potentially send someone to the emergency room. You’re not writing a how-to manual, but you still need to present things in a “this is how this is safely done” format.

This doesn’t just apply to edge play. I read a book recently where the characters were playing with food and my instant thought was “this isn’t going to end well.” And how about…condoms. Should we put them on our characters? Should we worry about STDs and unplanned pregnancies? Or should we make an unobtrusive public service announcement and just slip the latex on? Condoms are a sore spot with me. As a writer I still wrestle with the responsibility of this one. And I say to myself, “Come on…it’s fiction.”

Brynn, please read above…

Seriously, especially when it comes to sexual activities in a book, an author must be responsible in how things are presented. Our characters might run around performing acts of daring-do around the continent and a reader will read with vicarious enjoyment. This is interesting and things they might never dream of doing. But when our characters settle down with their lover and get basic…this is something the reader could do—and might.

Variations on sex are still somewhat taboo things. It’s not something that’s openly taught or discussed. And if someone wants to spice up their love life and they don’t want to go to a sex shop, order a sex manual or surf the net for porn, where are they going to turn? Perhaps that spicy romance novel, with that dashing hero and kick-ass heroine…the book that’s sitting on the bed stand…page 56…

We don't need no stinking research...

I like to say that I write paranormal because there's no research involved. You get to just make stuff up, which is way less work. Of course that's not one hundred percent true. I find myself on-line or digging into my LARGE collection of research books, looking up the oddest things. Or asking friends via e-mail..."I need some French swear words. What would a Quebecois man say when he was shot--oh and he's not human so he knows it won't kill him but it really hurts." I can see this friend who, yes, used to live in Montreal and is now in Dallas, shaking her head from here. My September story involves a siren...and a 300 year old Irish sorcerer. So that meant looking up obscure Greek mythology and Gaelic phrases. Did you know that the sirens were the daughters of Achelous the river god and one of the muses? Neither did I. Then I thought, "You know, three hundred years ago in Ireland--he probably isn't circumcised." And other than brief flashes in movies I've never see one that wasn't. So off I went to Wikipedia for pictures... Accuracy isn't difficult at all, but it CAN be time consuming.

Of course there are shortcuts. Having a friend who knows a subject is one of them. I've had people ask me great questions, too. Like, "Do wolves mate for life?" (yes) and "Do baby rhinos have horns?" (not really) We all have resources like this. Use them. On the other hand, if you're just out to entertain and you deliberately and openly play fast and loose with reality--then go for it. I can can suspend disbelif and be entertained as long as I know that's what I'm supposed to do.

Two sub genres where accuracy is both more difficult to obtain and of paramount importance are historical fiction and suspense. I'm going to talk about movies, because frankly those come to mind at the moment, and I think they're more universally known. In a comment on Regina's blog the other day, I mentioned some scientific flaws in Jurassic Park that totally ruined the mood for me. There were several. Frog DNA? Please! Crocodile maybe--at least that's a reptile. Iguana I could have accepted. But frog? Nuh-uh. So forget that who-o-o-ole movie. Whereas Bambi isn't supposed to be realistic, so I can overlook the fact that Flower would have eaten Thumper in a heartbeat. Skunks are carnivores!

DaVinci Code--errors are pissy and annoying. The James Bond movies on the other hand? Nah. I don't even look for errors there. I know they're silly and just for my amusement, so that's how I take them. Historicals same way. Take an "epic" like Braveheart or Elizabeth, and I'm going to pick, pick, pick if I see any holes--or even airplane contrails in the sky overhead (a popular one, by the way). Now A Knight's Tale? Openly campy and fun. Makes no pretense at accuracy. So I can just sit back and laugh my ass off. maybe I'm just weird, but hey. It's how my strange little mind works.

So do my books contain factual errors? Probably. I'm writing for fun and there are some things I probably think I know and forget to look up. I do, freqently, make up fictional towns so I don't have to worry about messing with real geography. But once I create something, I do try to be consistent. And while I play fast and loose with the mythologies of my fairy-tale creatures, I try to give explanations, and once I make them up, I try to be consistent.

On the other hand I'm not the richest woman in England (yep--a writer has surpassed Queen Elizabeth!) so maybe by worrying about consistency, I'm really going about it all wrong...