Kathleen Bradean

The Alchemist

by Kathleen Bradean

I know a writer–actually, I think every writer is tempted with these thoughts, but let’s pretend it’s just this one guy — who was fairly good at short stories, but he wanted success in the form of a highly acclaimed and commercially successful literary novel. The writer would never admit this out loud, but he secretly believed that there was a formula to creating these rare books, so he spent hours analyzing novels that enjoyed some critical acclaim and commercial success in an attempt to distill the essence of the  magical formula hidden within. He wrote detailed outlines to analyze their pace. He picked apart paragraphs and plots and poked around their insides hoping to discover it. Year after year, he obsessed over this idea. He was looking to turn lead into gold. An alchemist.

I sympathized with the Alchemist. After all, wasn’t I once so frustrated by the publishing landscape and relatively low sales of erotica that I was tempted to try my hand at a romance novel? Not because I thought romance novels were easy to write, but because the market for romance is so huge and back then my definition of success having thousands of readers.* My brilliant plan was thwarted by the fact that I have zero ability to write romance. Believe me, I tried. Anyone who thinks it’s so simple obviously hasn’t sat down and tried to write one. (And anyone who thinks romance is formulaic should consider that murder mysteries are too.)

Then I was struck by an epiphany. I already knew what the literary equivalent of the Philosopher’s Stone was. The Alchemist doesn’t need to spend hours trying to find this elusive magical ingredient anymore. *crooks finger* Come closer, and I will share this secret with you.

All he had to do was…

But first, a moment of ‘catty sounding but not really meant that way’ commentary on runaway best sellers such as The Da Vinci Code and Shades of Grey. Books that enjoy wild popularity like that usually aren’t well-written, which is confusing as hell to writers. Why do we struggle with our craft when it appears not to matter?* This odd dichotomy happens because to reach those levels of sales, you have to get non-readers to read the books, and non-readers aren’t as picky about writing quality as habitual readers are. Non-readers may even feel that those books are more accessible because the writing isn’t literary or artistic. They’re light, breezy reads that don’t challenge the reader. (And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Sorry. I can’t support snobbery when it come to books.) Then there are books such as the Harry Potter series which are well-written (even though for a while there it was verrrrry fashionable for writers to pooh-pooh their artistic merit too) yet also sell heaps of copies and often to non-readers.

So what are the similarities here?

What’s the big secret to their success?

*Back into whisper mode*

It’s the characters.

Do you feel cheated? That’s no big secret. But if you’re the Alchemist, somehow, you’ve lost sight of this. Something about the characters in those best-selling books we love to hate make the story worth reading. Oh sure, a ripping yarn helps. A fantastic opening paragraph is also important. All the basics of a good story have to be there no matter how mediocre the execution. But I swear that no one would have bothered handing FSOG or Harry Potter off to a friend, saying ‘You have to read this!” if the characters hadn’t spoken to them. Characters are what we read for. We get wrapped up in what’s happening to them. We cry at their losses. So yes, pay attention to your prose, and your plot, but give your readers what they want – someone worth reading about.

What we should study is the way these authors created that spark that made their characters compelling enough to follow around for several hundred pages. For some reason, this is the art of the craft we don’t often talk about. Maybe it’s so obvious that we can’t see it. Or perhaps we feel if we get the grammar and the story structure prefect, it will make the character leap off the page, but I’ve read, and set aside unfinished, too many perfectly polished literary novels with drab characters to believe that’s true. Mary Shelly cut right to the truth of writing when she created an entire novel around the idea of sparking life into an inanimate body!

Oddly enough, the Alchemist already writes fairly compelling characters, so he has to tools to write a successful novel. Now if he’d only stop diagramming sentences of literary masterpieces and just write, maybe he’d turn out a decent novel.

* Success means different things to different writers. Your ideas and goals may change. And don’t let me imply that wanting to be number one the best seller’s list isn’t a perfectly legit dream for a writer, because you know I’d take that spot in a heartbeat.

Hand Me My Smelling salts, Myrtle

So, to recap, there was a book that many people enjoyed reading and many people enjoyed critiquing that was made into a movie that many people saw this weekend. It had strong sexual content. The wimmenz were the main audience. How can this be? *clutches pearls* *sinks onto fainting couch* *uncaps the smelling salts* Has the world gone mad?

No. It isn’t possible. I refuse to believe that any woman could make the personal decision to enjoy such a thing. Ever.

Western culture teaches us that women don’t enjoy, much less think about, sex. Unless they’re bad. Oh so very bad. *delighted shiver* And we all know that Western culture never gets anything wrong about the way women think and feel, ever, because it was written by manly men and some women who know stuff. They said so, so they must be experts. I mean, you couldn’t take each women’s word for what she thinks because women are notorious liars about their sexuality and need to be told what they think about such matters. Not to mention that they don’t have a clue in their pink, fluffy little brains about how women are. Completely clueless.

But why else would they be reading this book? It’s perplexing, isn’t it?

Oh that’s right. For the romance angle. It’s perfectly okay for women to like romance because that’s what they’re into. Whew! Here these women were, innocently picking up a book recommended by their friends, thinking that they were about to read a sweet romance, when Boom! They’re ambushed by sex! Surely they all flipped quickly past those pages and got back to the loooove, instead of lingering over the sex scenes and getting all moist down in their girly bits. No, they couldn’t have possibly done that. Of course they were repulsed if they happened to read part of the sex scenes by mistake. They didn’t go out and maybe buy a little something to try in the bedroom with their lovers husbands, because women never initiate sex, and they never, ever think of it as fun.

And even if they did find themselves *whisper* aroused by it, surely it’s because they lack the capacity to distinguish between fantasy and reality. If they enjoy this story, they’re immediately going to search for a billionaire lover and do all the things in the book exactly as they are portrayed. Because, you know, wimminz.

This must be a vast conspiracy to fool us into thinking women actually have inner sexual lives and are capable of independent thought. We know this simply isn’t so. An expert told me.

~

All kidding aside, I have no problem with people criticizing a book. Erotica deserves to be well written. So go ahead and critique FSOG. Lament its shortcomings. Weep that it darkens the name of erotica, and sneer at how poorly it portrays BDSM. Write parodies of it. Trash it in blogs, Laugh at it. Use it to sell your own work. It’s open season; do as you will- with the book.

However, I have a huge issue with judging the readers who liked it. There is a disturbing tone that creeps into those conversations, with hints that fans of FSOG are somehow less sophisticated, stupid, sexually repressed, frumpy, middle aged, or simply lower class than the “real” fans of erotica. They get scolded from everyone for liking it, and I’m tired of it. So here’s my guide to surviving what remains of the FSOG madness:

1) it’s just a book. A fucking book. That’s all.

2) if your panties get in a bunch thinking about women getting wet over the idea of an emotionally abusive asshole who malpractices BDSM, or any fantasy you disapprove of, then just stop thinking about it.  Just. Stop. Problem solved.

It's Complicated

by Kathleen Bradean

For the past two years, my family’s drama has been building to a bad ending. A real life bad ending. In a book, it would be a great ending, somewhere between a trashy Dynasty catfight and the bleakness of Fargo, a train wreck that Dominick Dunne would have appreciated.

The friends that have followed the play-by-play of this drama have asked if I’d ever consider writing a screenplay or a book about it. It’s no fun to live through, so stepping back to look at it as a writer gives me some much needed distance. Looking at this sprawling mess from that distance, I can see the strengths and weaknesses of it as a piece of entertainment. (And believe me, from a gallows sense of humor perspective, some of us in this family find whats going on both grimly amusing and horrifying in equal measures.)

It’s amazing how a seemingly normal family can be torn apart when they’ve been nurturing a Cuckoo egg in the nest.  (Some cuckoo birds are brood parasites which lay their eggs in the nests of different species. When the eggs hatch, the larger cuckoo hatchling  pushes the other chicks out of the nest or crowds them out to get all the food, often exhausting the unwitting foster parent birds with it’s constant demands for more as the step-siblings that didn’t get shoved out starve to death.)  Any reader with siblings could relate to this warning tale, and elderly parents could learn a thing or two about defending themselves from predatory children. So this story would work as fictionalized true crime or as non-fiction.  

But writer me also sees the structural flaws in this story as a story.

1) It sprawls over many years as the build-up to the denouement.  That could be condensed, or the writer could opt for a James Michener (does anyone remember his work now?) length tome.

2) there are so many fascinating side stories that could be woven in, but they might hopelessly muddy the narrative. Which of these stories would the writer chose to write? The alleged financial crimes against the sister? The alleged elder abuse and alleged financial shenanigans committed against the mother? Any of the many other alleged scams and frauds now coming to light? How do you pick? How do you narrow down the focus while preserving the wide scope? And which trial would be the dramatic highlight?

3) there’s more than one villain. One is so over the top as to be almost unbelievable to the reader. Seriously. After a while, a reader would say “Come on. in real life, no one would do that.”  We often find ourselves saying to the latest events “Really? Really? Un-fucking-believable.”

All this musing has been a good thought exercise on storytelling. While side stories and just one more example of heroism or villainy might seem to drive home the point, we have to keep our narratives focused and tightly written. I’ve often said that writing a novel is like hiking through a forest. Many writers begin their work knowing the starting point of the tale and where it’s supposed to end up, but picking the path between those two points is often a mystery that unfolds as the writer writes. Finding that right path is as much art as it is craft.  The tale should not wander off the path to pick pretty flowers. Nor should it take the scenic route. It’s okay to tell complicated stories, but those demand the most focus in the narrative,

I hope some day to be able to report a happy ending to our family drama. Life doesn’t usually give us closure though. I think that’s why people crave stories. They have a decisive end.

Community

by Kathleen Bradean

The past few days, as I hung out with fellow erotica writer (and editor) D.L. King, I was reminded again of what a close-knit community erotica writers are. I’m sure there are rivalries, but for the most part we’re wonderfully supportive of each other. I’ll admit that I get a little jealous when I read about other writers’ successes, but only because I wish I’d tried to get stories in for deadlines or had worked as hard at my writing as those other writers did.

As I’m friends on FaceBook with many writers, I get glimpses into their lives. I’ve never met them in person, but we’ve been in many anthologies together and been on writer’s lists, so I feel as if I know them. I’ve seen some folks struggle through terrible times, and I’ve seen other writers rush in with words of support and even personal help or funds.

I’m not sure what people think of when they envision erotica writers, but I doubt it’s such sweetness and gentle care of others. Not that their opinion matters, of course.

I’m proud to know this group of people. I love how they help each other with grammar problems and news about editors as well as personal matters outside writing. You’re all good people- in case you need to be reminded. But one of the things I like about you most is that you’re naughty too.

Happy Holidays.

…. But Then, Magic

by Kathleen Bradean

Thank you, Donna George Storey, for your latest post about
the pleasure of trying hard. I’d already decided on my topic, and here, you
provide the salt and garnish to my thoughts!

Writing is hard
work. When it’s great it looks effortless. The letters appear on a page that’s
a flat plane of two dimensions, so the reader can never see what lies beneath.
The words evoke dimensions in the reader’s imagination, but that’s the story,
not the underlying structure that delivers it. And certainly not the process
that built that structure.

All this talk of work makes writing sound like a chore. (It
can be) A drudge (oh, it is sometimes). Torture (don’t get me started). So
non-writers wonder why we do it. It’s not enough to say we’re driven.
Non-creative types don’t get driven.  Let’s not worry about them.  Instead, let’s think about the aspiring
writers. All they seem to hear about is the agony. The wrist-to-forehead sighs.
The existential torment. We never talk about the joy. So let me tell all you aspiring writers about the magical
moments:

The first time you finish writing a novel.

You finish a story and it was exactly what you set out to do.

The serendipity of dashing off something from your
imagination then doing some research
and not only did you get it right, but the research adds depth and richness to
your story and now it’s at a whole new level of totally awesome.

That word. *snaps fingers* That word — it’s so elusive, the
only one that will do.  It’s out there,
roaming around in the periphery of your mental vision but you just can’t get it
to… Oh! Yes! That’s it.

You’re crying your eyes out as you write because this scene
with these characters is so moving, and you’re a wreck the rest of the day.

When a beta reader points out exactly what’s wrong with your
story and you realize that deep down, you knew it all along. But what’s even
better, you know how to fix it!

That first acceptance.

That eightieth acceptance.

When out of nowhere, a scene drops into your brain, and you
realize you can build an entire story around those few seconds.

You’ve just written the truest story you could.

Writers with some experience, what are your moments of
writerly joy?

What's the Point?

by Kathleen Bradean

Being a creative type, as you probably know, means having a particularly active brain. Which is all find and dandy when you find yourself stuck in traffic or in a doctor’s waiting room and you have to self-amuse (in a publicly acceptable manner) for a while. That’s the time to unleash the imagination and set it free. When it isn’t such a great thing is when its two in the morning and you still can’t fall asleep because your brain decides to run endless iterations of  a bad scene you’re dreading rather than shut off.

By three a.m, you realize why Morpheus was a god.

Family drama may be keeping me awake, but in those wee hours of the morning I do my usual ‘thinking too much about things.’  And what I mused too much about recently– other than family drama– is a question.

What’s the point of erotica?

Saying “Well, to arouse readers, of course,” seems too simplistic and possibly wrong. Possibly. Horror seems like a genre intended to scare people, but it often, especially in movies, is used to reflect upon and comment on our culture. What’s the purpose of the mystery genre? Probably to reassure readers that there is order in life and there’s such a thing as closure. That’s a huge lie, of course, but– to quote The Sun Also Rises– “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” Maybe the point of a mystery is to entertain  the type of reader who likes a puzzle.

So maybe the point of erotica is to arouse, but I think it’s more complex than that in the hands of some writers and some readers. Could it be that the genre uses sex and sexuality to explore the human condition, and that titillation is just a byproduct? Is it erotica if it only shows sex but it isn’t arousing? (or is that simply literary fiction?) And does the author’s intent matter? what if it was supposed to turn you on but didn’t? Or what if it wasn’t ever supposed to arouse but one reader got a tingle and some fevered dreams out of a scene?

You can see why such thoughts turn into little hamsters on unbalanced exercise wheels in need of lubrication. The squeaking alone is enough to stop a brain from turning off. Eventually it does, but not before a subtler thief sneaks at the edges of my thoughts. And here’s the point where it turns slightly awkward, because the quote that came to me was from a children’s movie. In Willie Wonka (the Johnny Depp version, not the Gene Wilder one), Charlie Bucket sagely comments that “Candy doesn’t have to have a point.”  Maybe erotica doesn’t need to have one either. But let me know what you think.

I Have Only Myelf to Blame

OR

If Only My Mind Would Shut Up And Let Me Write

by Kathleen Bradean

In the past two years, I can’t remember having written a
short story. A couple weeks ago I got the urge to dive back in, probably because
my erotic horror novel is once again on ice and my fantasy novel (under a
different pen name) was just released so I have writing time. It didn’t hurt that
I had a vision or flash of inspiration or whatever you want to call it that gave
me a story to write. Or, at least, a starting point.

The smart thing to do would have been simply to write the
little bit I saw in my vision and run with it, but of course I had to ruin
things by thinking about it. Instead of pondering why these people were there
doing that sexy thing together, I obsessed over *that* point in a story, the
one where the sex begins.

Even if I were to begin a story with lovers stumbling into a
room, groping and kissing frantically before they decide the bed is way the
hell over there, so why don’t they just do it against a wall (something that
looks super hot on film but in real life demands the flexibility of a contortionist
or freakishly misplaced sexual organs, which I’m sure happens, but not, alas,
to me), that’s not where the sex began. It started before the door slammed open
and this couple stumbled into the darkened hotel room even if technically that’s
where the physical act began. The point I’m looking for is when sex began on
the mental plane, which was much further back in the time line.

Say my two characters meet in a hotel bar. Both are enjoying
a hot jazz trio before toddling off the bed after a long day of being whatever
high powered job erotica characters have now. Is being a billionaire a
profession? Anyway, they lock gazes across the room. Suddenly, they’re thinking
about sex. Mutual attraction isn’t enough though. I can close my eyes and
inhale deeply in the bakery without tasting their donuts, after all. It’s
movement in the right direction, but thinking that the guy across the way has a
great butt and pretty eyes too doesn’t mean you’re going to let him finger you
in the glass elevator on the way up to your hotel room. (or maybe it does. I don’t
judge)

Now my characters interact. The seduction begins, maybe with
a drink sent over, or maybe she takes the bar stool next to his. You may
approach it differently, but this is where sex starts in my stories. It may
happen off page, before the opening lines of my tale, but it happens. Even when
my characters know each other, I think it’s sexy as hell to think of them flirting
with each other and appreciating that even in a long term relationship, sex isn’t
always a given. I have to know my characters went to the trouble to woo their
partners, or the sex against the wall won’t hold my interest.

I’m not saying the seduction needs to be drawn out, or the conversation
has to be sexual. What I want to see—what I want to write—is that point where
sex goes from a possibility to a certainty. And yes, it’s erotica, so it’s
expected that sex will happen, but I’d like for readers to feel that it isn’t a
given until that magical turn of mind occurs. But seeing as it is sort of a
magical thing, I have to mull it over for a long while before I write my story.
 I’m trying to grasp an elusive thing.  Deep down, I know there’s no formula to
getting it right on the page, but that never stops me from dissecting stories
that work to try to figure out why.  It’s
a curse.

Waving The White Flag

By Kathleen Bradean

Over the past decade, I’ve discussed, argued, and mused over
erotica as a genre. Last night, while reading a piece of erotica, I decided
that my arguments are invalid.

Oh, on an esoteric ‘awake at three in the morning with
another writer who is like my fricking soulmate as we share profound insights
into The Everything of Everythingness’ level, the ideas I fought for and
against do matter. To someone. Probably an academic. And me, but I’m weird that
way. But to everyone else, they don’t, because everyone else properly goes to
bed at a sensible hour, doesn’t drink absinthe at cons, and likes the erotica
genre because that’s what they reach for when they want to turn on their brain.

Rather than fight against the label of erotica, I’ve decided
to embrace it because it’s damn useful to a writer.  Think about it. A person who picks up a
romance expects a story about a relationship. No one picks up a romance then
half way through asks with a suspicious glint in their eye, “Wait. Is this a
kissing book?”

A writer can only put so much on the page. The reader has to
bring something to the party, and the most important hostess gift– so to speak–
is the expectation of arousal. If you’ve been thinking of sex since lunch at
work, through the commute home, and during dinner, you’re going to be more
primed for sex than someone who only just now thought about it as they’re climbing
into bed. It makes the writers work so much easier if the reader is already willing
to be turned on.

The problem with not having the erotica label on my work is
far worse than having it. I imagine the wrinkled nose of a reader as they look
down at their tingling groin and mutter, “Wait. Is this a fucking book?” And
imagine the chirping crickets awkwardness of someone reading through a sex scene
they weren’t mentally prepared for and being bored by it. They might do something
to retaliate, like quote part of the scene out of context and publicly
ridicule it in a contest designed to shame writers for attempting to write sex
scenes in books that are not officially designated dirty, filthy smut.

Ahem.

Not that I find that sort of thing annoying as all get out
or anything.

While I’ve been writing erotica for years, I’ve often been
at odds with the label, but now I’ve decided to make my peace with it.  I know you’ve been waiting breathlessly for
this moment.  😉

Penny Dreadful, and other stories

by Kathleen Bradean

I hate it when a story is written so completely around a song that if I don’t know the song, the subtleties of the story are lost to me. Or worse – when I really, truly hate the song  So I’m wary of talking about a tv show or story that readers of this blog might not have seen before or dislike. Given the international scope of the readership here, it makes it even harder to appeal to everyone.

But…

A while ago, Lisabet Sari introduced me to The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. I loved that novel, so I searched for more by him and found his collection of short stories Pump Six and Other Stories. If you write short stories, I strongly suggest these to you because he write amazing short stories, but I also suggest it for a specific story The Fluted Girl. This story of extreme bod modification is amazingly erotic, in that it doesn’t flinch from the eroticism, but it also doesn’t seem to try to be erotic.

So go read it, then comment here or shoot an email to me and we can discuss his work.

And since I already brought up something you might not be familiar with, I have to ask

Are you watching Penny Dreadful? If you’re a fan of the original literary works that inspired some of our best monster movies, you’ll love Penny Dreadful. It’s like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen but steeped in the brooding romanticism that spawn the original tales. Sin weighs heavily on their shoulders. My god, even the house two of the characters lives in has arsenic green wallpaper! They are literally surrounded by poisonous air.

Caliban – Doctor Frankenstein’s creature – is no mute, grunting zipper neck. He rages against loneliness and speaks of poetry. Then he does something terrible and you hate him.  But while I always read Shelly’s Frankenstein as being a warning about what happens when scientific man clashes with nature, this interpretation has me rethinking it. the problem with Caliban, why he’s so terrible, is that he wasn’t loved. He was abandoned. While that’s not a new problem produced by the industrial age, it often feels that way.  

So far, Dorian Grey has bedded three of the cast. He’s debauched, but you can see the boredom. I loved the scene when he was at the theater because it reminded me so much of the scene in Oscar Wilde’s novel when Dorian was on the cusp,before he turned wicked. I wonder if we’re going to see him walk the line between debauchery and evil for a while. (I also wonder if he’ll turn out to be Dracula).

I can’t wait to find out what further sins Sir Malcolm Murry committed in Africa while he was playing at being Alan Quartermain. We know he let his son die. He’s searching for redemption in trying to save his daughter Mina (yes, that Mina, from Bram Stoker’s Dracula). But I suspect he unleashed this horror on the world when he was in Africa searching for the source of the Nile.

Miss Vanessa Ives – played by Eva green – is absolutely amazing. I can say enough about the demands of this role and how she unleashes her power and vulnerability in equally amazing turns. (I only wish the writers would nail down the relationship between her and Sir Malcolm, because it swings from open hostility to almost friendly and back again which makes no sense)

And of course, we’re all waiting breathlessly to find out what sort of creature Ethan Chandler is. (even money is on werewolf)   Oh! and Billie Piper returns!

One of the things about this show is that it takes the parts of the source material most monster movies ignore and runs with it. It’s a good reminder of the comparative strengths and weaknesses of movies and novels. I know I often find myself thinking in cinematic terms when I write. That may be because of the mini-movie going on in my head of the story. But writing to a cinematic vision – so to speak – takes away from the richness of the story that can only be explored in a novel.

  
 

    

There's a Reason It's In The Trunk

Some of our constant readers may remember my monthly
contributions titled: Writing This Novel.

The idea was based on a quote by Poppy Z Brite that a writer
doesn’t learn how to write novels. Instead, they learn how to write this novel
as they’re writing it. My articles followed my thoughts and struggles while
writing a novel of erotic horror titled The Night Kreatures. 

I completed the novel and submitted it to a publisher. They
(rightly) didn’t care for the first two chapters and asked me to rewrite them. At
the time, I was working on the second novel for a series (under a different pen name)
and didn’t have time. I put it aside and figured I’d get back to it eventually.

Two years passed.

Several weeks ago, I submitted the third novel in that
series to the publisher and was looking for something to work on when a friend
mentioned that an agent would be interested in seeing my work. Ulp! I don’t have
anything to show an agent! I haven’t written a short story in over a year. Aha!
I thought, this is the time to grab out the trunk novel and fix it.

While reading through the completed third draft of the novel
I wrote in 2012, I was grateful it wasn’t published yet. I still love the creepy story,
but I hate where I started it (thus the problem with the first two chapters). The
sequence of events through the middle third makes no sense, although I remember
feeling it was vitally important to do things in that order as I wrote it in
2012.

*eye roll* Writers, right?

Why do we make those arbitrary decisions, and why do we get
so stubborn about them? Those decisions often turn out great for me, which is
why I’ll follow that instinct every time, but other times I mystify myself. Why
would I struggle so hard to bend a story to an idea that clearly isn’t working?
Every effort to force it showed so clearly on the page when I went back to read
it. It was painful to slog through. 

Have you ever gone back to a novel and tried to fix it? Were
you able to? Or did everything you tried only make it worse? Do you have a
trunk novel you’d like to get back to? What’s stopping you?

Hot Chilli Erotica

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