By Lisabet Sarai
In 1999, I published my first erotic novel. I had no idea what I was doing, no literary context for either erotica or romance. I'd read The Story of O, Anne Rice's Beauty books, and some Victorian smut, plus the one Black Lace book that inspired me to write Raw Silk, but I'd never read any Romance with a capital R – my idea of romance was tragic tales like Wuthering Heights - and overall I was woefully innocent of such issues as genre conventions.
Raw Silk had a happy ending –
that is, if you would assign the description “happy” to a sexual
contest among the heroine's three lovers, which leads her to reject
her wholesome but virile hometown guy and an omnisexual Thai
prince for an emotionally-constipated Dom with attitude.
My second novel (Incognito) had
an equally positive conclusion, in which the heroine commits to the
bookish colleague who has proved to her that sex doesn't have to be
anonymous to be hot – though there are intimations that their
bound-to-be-exciting future relationship will include encounters with
Mark's cousin Marla as well.
My third novel (Nasty Business)?
Yup, you guessed it. A happy ending, in the sense that the business
rivals acknowledge that their mutual attraction may be the basis for
some sort of longer term relationship. The heroine does reject the
hero's proposal of marriage - he proposes as she's tied to the mast
of his sailing yacht, after he has screwed her with a champagne
bottle... Needless to say, that is not why she refuses!
Not until my fourth novel, an erotic
noir, did I fashion a more ambiguous conclusion. Exposure ends
with a massive question mark. Stella has suffered violence and
betrayal. She has lost her home, her family memories, and very
nearly her life. Two lovers, one male and one female, both want her,
but she's not at all certain which, if either, she'll choose. Mainly
she needs to heal herself. There's a suggestion that the best way for
her to do this is to distance herself from anyone associated with the
events that have scarred her. However, I don't offer any answers.
Since then I've published four
additional novels, all deliberately targeted at the erotic romance
market, so of course they all end at least “happily for now”.
Although I sometimes complain about the constraints of the romance
genre, I have to admit that winding these books up in a manner
acceptable to romance readers was not that difficult. Usually, I had
the conclusion in mind when I began the tale; it was in some sense
inevitable (because of the story, not because of the genre).
The thing is, I'm basically an
optimist. I've lived a fortunate life, and I tend to expect good
things to happen. To me, a happy ending doesn't necessarily seem
forced or implausible (though I've certainly read plenty of stories
where the sudden crumbling of every barrier to happiness really
galled me). Happiness isn't necessarily assured, in my view, but it's
certainly possible.
What's important to me is that the
conclusion make sense – that it flow from the premise and the
characters. Furthermore, the characters must change over the course
of the tale, and often, this change will be triggered by trauma or
loss. In Quarantine, for instance, one of the heroes is
horrifically wounded – almost killed – in an anti-authority riot.
He loses his hand and his entire face must be reconstructed. Quite
literally, he becomes someone else, and this experience both matures
and embitters him.
Although I often write happy endings,
I'm definitely concerned about the “romancing” of erotica. I have
no problem with love, you understand. I just worry because it seems
to be getting harder and harder to find publishing venues for stories
without it, stories with darker themes or less-than-rosy endings.
Optimist though I am, I've written a few of those myself. “Trespass”,
a science-fiction treatment of Romeo and Juliet, ends with the death
of both protagonists. That story was rejected by three editors before
I found a home for it.
I suspect I'd never have succeeded in
publishing “Fleshpot” (in which the narrator perishes in
the tentacled embrace of a seductive monster) if I'd tried to submit
it to one of the mainstream erotic publishers like Cleis, Xcite or
Mischief. (It appeared in Nobilis' charity anthology of tentacle
porn, Coming
Together Arm in Arm in Arm.) And I'd guess that nowadays I'd
be hard pressed to get anyone to accept two of my earliest (and I
think, among my best) stories, “Higher Power” and “Communion”.
The former ends with the narrator/heroine paralyzed from a BDSM stunt
gone wrong while in the latter, the narrator is burned at the stake
as a witch.
Still, the vast majority of my fiction,
even the tales that clearly deserve to be labeled erotica, have happy
or at worst bittersweet endings. (I've a particular fondness for tales of transcendent
chance encounters, after which the participants part, forever
transformed.) And here at the Grip, surrounded by some authors
(Amanda, Daddy, Garce and Jean, at least) who write gritty, serious, intense,
even painful erotica, I sometimes feel moved to apologize for my
sunny view of the world. Sorry – I'm not trying to make things
worse! I really do believe the world needs all kinds of stories, with
all kinds of endings.
My worry about the market trend toward
ignoring anything without a HE is pushing me to write darker erotica,
though that does not come naturally to an optimist like me. We need
some balance, I think. I welcome the advent of Burning Book Press
(http://burningbookpress.com/)
and Stiff Rain Press (http://www.stiffrainpress.blogspot.com/),
independent e-presses who emphasize the erotic rather than the
romantic elements in their offerings, and who pull no punches when it
comes to taboos and darkness. I'm working on a story for the recently
announced Burning Book anthology Written on Skin, which will
end with the hero's death and the heroine's flaying him. Not exactly
HEA.
Of course, the past few years have seen
the demise of several publishers, like Freaky Fountain and Republic
Press, pioneers who bucked the happily-ever-after-everywhere trend.
(Freaky Fountain's Bad
Romance deserved to become a classic.) I only hope that these
newcomers don't suffer the same fate.
Given my generally positive
perspective, I'm hoping for the best and looking forward to a
literary renaissance on the darker side of sex.
