I recently tried writing something new for me, a historical story. In fact, an early medieval story, set in the twelfth century.

In all my writing, I try hard to set the scene in my readers’ minds (yes, revealing my naked ambition by aspiring to multiple readers) by “painting” in what I hope is enough detail for their imaginations to fill in everything else they need to see the scene in their mind.

I blame being exposed to Len Deighton’s The Ipcress File at an impressionable age. But it’s a style I like for being economical and usually engaging.

But how can I imagine being there, watching my characters do their twelfth century … stuff?

Research? As a leisure-time writer with no access to academic libraries, opportunities for “proper” research are a bit restricted.

Yes, of course I used google for some things, but you need to have a good idea of what your real question is before you can figure out which hits are helpful answers.

Some answers are just pretty simple, of course, assuming we remember to ask ourselves “is this right?”

Not long ago, I read a novel set in the 1920’s, in which the main character produced a Glock pistol. A fine choice of weapon for self defence, I’m sure, but an implausible one… Glock wasn’t founded until 1963.

Want to set a scene in a fast-food restaurant in London in say 1970? McDonalds won’t open their first branch there for another four years.

Sometimes it’s kind of convenient to rely on other people’s research, particularly if you’re confident it’s reliable enough, and it looks pretty good.

I found a lot of helpful information in Ian Mortimer’s The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England. He’s a professional academic historian as well as an historical fiction writer, so has access to the right resources, and can probably even read Latin and Middle English. He wrote this book to help readers see the past as real rather than as history, describing what you might see and experience as a visitor to the period. It gave me some insight into how people lived, what they ate and wore, and about their world. He’s since written two similar books, covering the Elizabethan and Restoration periods.

And of course Dr Mortimer isn’t the only writer whose work we can benefit from, if only for some ideas and scene-dressing.

A few examples? Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose paints a vivid picture of a 14^th century Italian monastery. Edith Pargeter (aka Ellis Peters) set her well-known Brother Cadfael murder mysteries in early 12th century Shrewsbury, in western England. Sarah Woodbury’s Gareth and Gwen mysteries are set in 12^th century Wales, when it was still a separate country from Norman-ruled England, and Dublin was a Viking city. Or there are the Stanton and Barling mysteries, by EM Powell, again set in the 12^th century, where the two main characters were the nearest thing the English justice system had to detectives.

There are factual TV shows and series which can help us “see” the past a little more clearly as a real time and place, particularly the “re-enacting” ones. There were several excellent British TV series about agricultural life in the past – the Tudor Monastery Farm, the Victorian Farm, the Edwardian Farm and the Wartime Farm (ie 1939-1945). The “supersizers” series by Giles Coren and Sue Perkins were factual entertainment about the history of food, including the two of them trying out things from the period, like clothing and historically accurate meals. It’s worth remembering our ancestors ate a far wider range of animals, birds and fish than we do. That wasn’t because these were notably tasty, more of an “eat it or go hungry” choice. I’ve read that swan tastes pretty awful.

I’ve read plenty of books (or listened to the audiobooks) which conveyed the period nicely for me. The Sherlock Holmes stories, written between 1887 and 1927, mentioned telegrams, daily postal services, messenger services, the introduction of telephones, and using frequent train services. The unrestricted access to opium and cocaine is surprising to modern readers, but both were readily available at the time, when it’s been estimated that a quarter of doctors were addicted to opium.

Other books I’ve enjoyed which were set in the early 1950’s in Britain described a time of post-war austerity, limited private car ownership, commonplace use of trains with helpful station staff (including porters), and, in some areas, telephone calls still connected via operators who might just be listening in.

On the other hand, books actually written in earlier periods may not be that helpful, as the authors expected their readers to at least be familiar with the world the characters lived in (eg Fielding, Austen, Hardy or Dickens).

What about old TV shows and films, from the 1920’s on? These might show regular life in the US before air conditioning – wiping the back of your neck with a handkerchief in summer – everyone wearing hats and other period fashions, steam engines in widespread use on the railways, horses and steam traction engines being used on farms, manual typewriters, rotary dial telephones, telex machines, card index systems, hot metal newspaper printing…

Some modern shows and movies made a big effort to create realistic-looking settings, and I thought Versailles, The Musketeers, Taboo, and Poldark certainly gave the impression of being true to period. The 2005 film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice with Matthew Macfadeyn and Keira Knightly was a notable hatchet job of the book which had some fabulous background details about life for the rural “comfortably-off” around 1800.

Although it’s primarily fantasy, there’s a lot of historical accuracy in the Game of Thrones world. Not the dragons, obviously, but the background details of life in a castle and so on.

The TV series Britannia ran rings around historical accuracy and even plausibility. But what the heck, it’s only a story.

I watched Die Hard the other night (my go-to Christmas film), made in 1988 complete with women’s “big hair” styles, clumsy-looking computer systems, CB radios, but no mobile phones. Richard Gere’s character in Pretty Woman (1990) had a mobile phone, which looks hilariously clunky today, like two house bricks. Even Dirty Dancing had a wealth of background detail you could study – the idea of annual month-long stays at the same stuffy resort centre, the entertainment, fashions, and manners.

It’s probably wise to resist overdoing your scene-setting. While you might be tempted to include things in the narrative like books or albums popular at the time, unless these are subjects discussed by the characters, it might come across as “telling”. Perfect incidental visual details in a TV show or film, though.

We may be fortunate in Britain with our long history, as we have some great places to visit which can help our imaginations. Neolithic constructions, iron-age hill forts, Roman forts and buildings, assorted castles and historic houses, and some decent museums…

The Weald and Downland Museum has more than forty historic buildings representing a thousand years of history. Blists Hill Victorian Town, operated by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, recreates a Victorian town for visitors, complete with a cast of re-enactors. The Beamish Open-Air Museum lets you glimpse industrial life in the northeast of England during the 19th and 20th centuries. I know the US has something similar at Colonial Williamsburg.

A lot of historic buildings and sites in Britain run events where visitors can meet re-enactors and get a brief glimpse of a version of the past, such as a medieval camp, or a Victorian mill or kitchen.

And then there are jousting displays and re-enacted battles and skirmishes, typically Viking or English Civil War. There are groups of enthiasts who do Roman, Napoleonic, Victorian and WW1 or WW2 military displays.

How about the large-scale annual Battle of Hastings rematch? Somehow, the bloody Normans always win, but maybe one year…

One thing we can’t get from these museums are some of the grim realities of even our recent past, which can be invaluable for the historical fiction writer. Dreadful poverty. The feudal system. Insanitary living conditions. A monotonous and limited diet. Frequent poor years for farming, with not infrequent famines. Thousands of people affected by ergotism. Half of children dying before the age of twenty-one. Huge numbers dying and suffering from disease, with no health or dental care, aggravated by malnutrition. Lives ruled by superstition and religion. The acceptance that the rich and noble were more important simply by right of birth. An almost matter-of-fact indifference to cruelty and suffering. Crusades, literal witch-hunts, wars, revolts and uprisings. The high death toll on long sea-journeys from disease, including an expected 50% from scurvy.

Or how about a disaster story set during one of the many fires which destroyed or severely damaged largely-wooden medieval European cities and towns? London had three great fires (1135, 1212 and 1666) and twelve major ones (two in Roman times, then in 675, 798, 892, 1087, 1130, 1132, 1220, 1227, 1299 and 1633). Lots of other towns and cities had similar incidents: google “list of town and city fires” and feel relief for modern building codes and well-equipped professional firefighters.

The past has all sorts of “detail” things which can help or hinder a writer, too. These are often overlooked for convenience in fiction.

Clothing

Between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, various European countries and the Massachusetts Bay Colony in America had “sumptuary laws”, restricting people’s choice of clothing. And fashions changed in the past almost as rapidly as today.

Religion and religious practices

In England, until the fifteenth century reformation, fast days (or meat-free days) occupied almost half the year – including every Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and all of Lent. Vegetables, or if you were lucky, fish. The selection of vegetables available was surprisingly limited, too. And don’t forget that people then were generally incredibly devout and very superstitious compared to us.

Language

As an example, for 200 years after the Norman Conquest of England, the general population spoke English, the ruling classes spoke Anglo-Norman and French, and very few of either group spoke the other’s language. Church services were conducted in Latin, of course. Legal cases could only be conducted in English from 1362, and the court switched to English by the end of the fourteenth century. By English I mean Middle English – check out Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” in the original text for a written form in the modern alphabet. And language use changed as fast in the past as it does today. There were also a wealth of local accents and dialects in all languages, some even more strikingly different from the norm than we have now.

Actually, language raises another question – dialogue. How closely do we follow what we think the speech styles would be in that period? It might sound perfect to someone from that time, but seems at best flowery and roundabout to us. How “realistic” does it need to be in order to convey a sense of the period? At the time, it was everyday language, after all.

Inevitably, there are a few books available to help those keen to write historical fiction.

Medieval Underpants and Other Blunders caught my attention when I perused Amazon, if only for the title. Historical Fiction Writing – A Practical Guide and Tool-Kit by Myfanwy Cook and Bernard Knight looks like a useful book, based on popular workshops Myfanwy has run. She’s a successful writer herself.

As with all other aspects of writing, there are no hard rules, only conventions. Even spelling’s just a convention, after all.

Readers who enjoy lots of historical fiction may well have expectations, so it’s probably worth becoming familiar with the genre or sub-genre you’re writing in.

Unless you’re writing an alternative history or steampunk, if you include significant factual details, do check them as best you can.

Other than that, well, have fun developing your ideas and writing your stories.

Oh, and do keep an eye open for intriguing historical discoveries. Spotting a mention of medieval underpants in a story might not actually be something to snigger about…

Oh, by the way, the comments I had back on my story from some of my collaborative critiquing group certainly left me feeling I’d got the “feel” right, which was rather nice to know. I’ve got some revisions to do, then I’ll see if I can get the story published.

The subject of this blog post was suggested because my turn to contribute to Editing Corner came just after I’d finished writing a story about a couple who invite other men into their home. Or, to be more accurate, who invite other men into their home to have sex with the wife while the husband watches.

It’s certainly not a new theme for stories, and psychologists can explain for hours how this is something that goes all the way back to our primitive ancestors. They’ll quote theories about ‘sperm competition’ and sex-mad bonobos, and tell us it’s all perfectly understandable behaviour.

The aforementioned story involves a fictitious couple called Harry and Michelle.

In the prequel, Michelle discovered that she enjoyed casual sex with other men, and her husband Harry discovered (much to his surprise) that he actually enjoyed watching it happen. There’s nothing new in that plot-line, and it’s been a well-used template in works of erotica for many years.

So, the scenario we’re talking about is a couple inviting another man to have sex with the wife. But, who should she choose…?

If Michelle had driven a Fiat Punto for ten years and was offered the chance to take something else for a test-drive, she’d want to upgrade. Something a bit flashy, with more power. Something bigger.

So, Michelle found herself a man with more to offer.

Michelle had become a hotwife.

Hotwife – Definition: a married woman who has sexual relationships with other men, typically with the consent of her husband.

Another term often attributed to ladies like Michelle is a slut-wife.

Although the word ‘slut’ is a vulgar term used to describe a woman considered by others to have loose sexual morals, it has a less offensive meaning within the hotwife alternative marriage community, referring to women who have chosen a non-monogamous lifestyle. Slut-wives can openly take on multiple partners and are not shamed for this choice, and their husbands approve of their promiscuity. So Michelle is also a slut-wife.

Harry likes to watch, so he’s a voyeur, right?

Voyeur – Definition: a person who gains sexual pleasure from watching others when they are naked or engaged in sexual activity.

But Harry is more precise than any normal Peeping Tom (there’s a joke about Tom, Dick and Harry crying out to be told here…)

Harry doesn’t get off on watching just anybody have sex: he gets off on watching his wife have sex, which makes him a wife-watcher.

Wife-watcher – Definition: A man who gains sexual pleasure from watching his wife have sex with another partner.

The term that’s most synonymous with this behaviour in erotica is cuckold.

It’s an old word, and this is what is says in the Oxford Reference:

Cuckold – Definition: The husband of an adulteress, often regarded as an object of derision, ultimately derived from Old French cucu ‘cuckoo’, from the cuckoo’s habit of laying its egg in another bird’s nest.

In fetish usage, a cuckold is complicit with the partner’s ‘infidelity’. But there’s more to it than that. As far as cuckoldry goes, the primary urge for the cuckold is to be humiliated. Psychology regards the cuckold fetish as a variant of sadomasochism. Freudian analysis sees it as eroticisation of the fears of infidelity and inadequacy. Some cuckolds don’t need to be present during the deed, and are happy to wait for their hotwife to return and describe her evening’s events in explicit detail.

The fetish only works if the cuckold enjoys the humiliation and degradation that accompanies his wife’s ‘infidelity’. If the husband doesn’t enjoy all of the humiliation and degradation, then he is not a cuckold.

Before the hotwife and cuckold can participate in their sordid shenanigans, they need something else. They need a ‘prop’. A big, thick, meaty prop. Yip, you guessed it. They need the person to have sex with the hotwife while the husband watches…

This man is known as the bull.

Bull – Definition: Within the context of cuckolding, a bull is a sexually dominant male who has sex with a married woman with her husband’s consent.

Bulls are typically good looking, confident, and well hung—which helps them satisfy women sexually in ways their loyal husbands can’t. Being a bull can be gratifying for men interested in sex rather than relationships. However, men looking for deeper connections may be disappointed and start feeling objectified by being a bull.

If you look at any cuckolding sites, the first thing you’ll notice is how many of the bulls are black. There are countless pictures of white women being pleasured by black men. The majority of these pictures have been taken by the husbands. Terms like BBC (big black cock) and Alpha are emblazoned over the pages of these sites.

Returning to my fictitious couple…

The hotwife has a loving husband and a series of ‘bulls’ to satisfy her womanly needs. For Michelle, life is good. She wants her husband to enjoy it as much as she does, and so she checks out cuckolding forums and chat rooms. She sees all the things that cucks love — denial, chastity, restraint, humiliation.

So she goes online and buys him a cock-cage, then informs him he’ll only be allowed to have sex when she thinks he deserves it. She lets him perform clean-up, which is exactly what it sounds like — using his tongue to clean up the mess the bull has deposited inside her during sex. Yip, Michelle is living the dream.

But for Harry, things seem to be going a little off-script. While there is no denying the thrill of watching his wife being used by the well-endowed bulls, he’s frustrated that she’s now off-limits to him. The cock-cage means he has to use a cubicle every time he takes a pee in the pub or at work, and he never gets the opportunity to give himself a four-finger-shuffle to ease the pressure.

And then there’s clean-up. He knew it was what she wanted—and he loved her—so he did it. Now she’s pushing him further; a pegging from her strap-on, contact with the bull, and worse.  What started out for Harry as a sexy, wife-watching adventure is becoming a bit of a nightmare.

Maybe Harry isn’t really a cuckold, after all…

So, what do you call a guy who enjoys all the voyeuristic pleasure of wife-watching without the humiliation part of being a cuck? He, I’m reliably informed, is a stag.

Stag – Definition: A dominant monogamous husband who shares his wife with other men without any humiliation. It turns him on to see her receive pleasure

The wife of a stag is called a vixen.

Vixen – Definition: A shared hotwife who does not degrade or humiliate her husband. Instead, she uses her play to turn him on.

Also, a stag/vixen encounter doesn’t preclude the husband being involved. As well as watching, he might eventually join in with his partner and another man rather than enjoying being excluded.

Before I started writing the second book, I contacted a couple of people who are in the lifestyle to ask if they’d answer some questions for me. The lady is a hotwife, and the guy describes himself as a ‘wife-watcher’ rather than a cuckold. They’re unrelated and, as far as I know, they don’t know one another.

I knew where I wanted my story to go and put forward the scenarios I intended to include, along with a lot of general questions about the lifestyle. Their willingness to answer all of my sordid questions has hopefully given my story a feeling of authenticity.

They were incredibly open with their answers, and it soon became apparent that they were at opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to the ‘hotwife’ fetish. But what was also apparent was how strong their relationships are. They’re both in normal, loving relationships with their respective spouses. Both have families and jobs and regular lives.

The only difference between them and millions of other couples is that every once in a while they spice up their sex-life by including a third party. There is no jealousy, no bitterness, and certainly no seeing the other man without the husband being told. Both relationships work on total trust.

There are numerous sites where couples and bulls advertise their availability, and also chat rooms for them to ‘meet’ and discuss their preferences.

Many hotwives wear an anklet as a way of letting people know they’re in the wife-sharing alternative marriage lifestyle. This piece of jewellery is designed to show that the married woman’s husband is giving other men permission to talk to her with the knowledge that she may go a lot further than just talking.

Others have tattoos in prominent places (ankle, wrist) or not-so prominent places. A Queen of Spades tattoo signifies a woman who is looking specifically for a black man to have sex with.

I think of cuckold/hotwife and stag/vixen couples as two different examples of wife-sharing. I’ve seen this term listed as being synonymous with wife-swapping (swinging), but to me, the two are different.

The primary driving force of wife-sharing is that the husband gets sexual enjoyment from seeing his wife with another man. He gets pleasure from seeing her pleasure. It’s like he’s so proud of his possession that he wants to show her off. With wife-swapping, the primary driving force is that both partners want to experience sex with someone else.

Some people who start off as swingers may realise that the biggest thrill for the husband is watching his wife with another man. Conversely, some couples who go down the wife-sharing route may find that once in a while, the husband wants to experience contact with another woman as well. I don’t think there are any hard and fast rules. Each couple is different, and they’re perfectly entitled to have a change to the routine every now and then. But for the most part, the husband in a wife-sharing relationship is monogamous. He only desires his wife.

Though aware that wife-sharing was a popular fantasy, I was surprised when I first started my research at the sheer number of people actually participating in the lifestyle. I’ve read that the divorce rates between couples within the wife-sharing community are much lower than those between regular couples, and I’m pretty sure that this is also true of couples within the swinging community.

I’m told that it is imperative that you are honest with each other, and that you have a clear understanding of each other’s desires and limits. For any couples considering dipping their toes in the wife-sharing pool, it would be beneficial for you both to talk it through and discuss what it is you’re both hoping to get out of it.

For Harry and Michelle, that lack of communication caused problems that could easily have been avoided. But then, all stories need a little conflict, so I didn’t have them discussing what worked for them until halfway through Book 2.

Basically, if you’re thinking about writing a story around a wife-sharing scenario, then you have to decide if the husband is going to be a cuckold or a stag.

The nice thing is, he can be anywhere between the two extremes. And since it’s your story, you can decide what each half of the couple wants out of the arrangement and give your story an interesting dynamic as well lashings of fulfilling sex.

One of the indoor activities I do with my son is to print off the ‘disaster movie bingo’ card I have on my hard drive, and then watch one of the many daft movies floating around on Amazon or Netflix. Widely-ignored scientist? Check! Scientist separated from wife? Check! Heroine survives hurricane with hairdo intact? Check!

There are twenty-five items on our card, and I think that the highest marks are tied between 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, and San Andreas.

We play this game as a chance to be creative. It’s fun to chat about what we’d change with the plot or characters to make the film more unpredictable. It helps us to think laterally. However, just as viewers expect certain elements of a disaster movie to be in place, readers have expectations of romance and erotic romance.

World and character creation is tough in any genre. But in romance or erotic romance, with so many story expectations, it can be really tricky to take a common partnership dynamic, a frequent sexual dynamic and a familiar setting, and make something completely new out of it.

I don’t believe for a second that anyone who’s writing for the joy of it writes a story where their main characters sound just like all the other characters they’ve read about and loved. There are inspirations, yes. But people write to bring their own characters to life.

Nevertheless, there are a group of recognised personalities who crop up all over the world of romance and erotic romance who will seem instantly familiar. I’ve summarised four such prototypes in the colossally exaggerated summaries below.

# # # #

The nearly  hard-hearted hero

His heart has been hermetically sealed and locked in a vault. He’s too tough for affection or conversation. You have to go at his immaculately-mortared walls with a JCB before he so much as cracks a smile.

• But there’s always one way in, right? There’s always a tiny door through which the heroine/reader sees his very well-hidden soft side:
• He may only speak to the rest of the world twice a year, but he makes a 100mph round trip three times a week to water his grandmother’s spider plants.
• He’s in the ‘Big Brother’ programme and spends every other weekend giving his tiny pal lessons in how to ignore women and field-strip rifles.
• He only roars at the heroine and knocks her to the ground to save her from accidentally stuffing her head into a woodchipper.
• He has a pet bunny/ancient dog to whom he is unwholesomely devoted. He can also be trusted to leap over the fence and give his neighbour’s baby goat mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, or rear baby squirrels by hand.

The Helen of Troy tomboy

 Benjamin put down the chainsaw and whisked the little towel from her handy belt to wipe the sweat from her face. She shouldn’t have worn her size-six leggings, though they protected her legs from the flying splinters as she single-handedly took down the copse of dead trees at the far end of the football field. Sweat glued her blue tank to her body, drawing unwanted attention from every jock in the school, and that of a few nerds, all of whom silently admired her lack of self-consciousness. Lumberjacking brought her peace. Benjamin got back to work, ignoring the random taunts from the entire cheerleading squad, who’d gathered at the treeline in full make-up just to emphasise how unlike them she was. They didn’t intimidate her in the slightest; having grown up with sixteen brothers, all in the military, she knew how to handle herself.

Nuff said, I think.

Poor wee self-sacrificial sausage

This is the guy with such a tortured past that he thinks he’s good for nobody, despite the entire cast of the book trying to tell him otherwise on a page-by-page basis. Really, he just won’t be told. He’s on his way to hell, and he won’t take anyone with him. He spends hours alone in his garage, using mufflers to block out any attempts of other characters to so much as compliment him on the nifty paint job on his vintage Mustang.

When the heroine finally engages him in conversation, he gets out of telling her how he really feels by diving between a toddler and an oncoming SUV. Alternatively, he’ll protect her from his scumbag personality by taking her to a ball game, leaving her in her seat while he ‘gets snacks’, and then voices her personal flaws over the PA system. That’ll put her off him for life, thus preventing any hurt feelings in the long term. Because there is no short term for the sacrificial sausage.

The reclusive artiste, Mr Clam

He’s the most amazing thing that the public have never heard of. He’s a reclusive painter who came out of art college with plaudits coming out of his backside, but who gave it all up to care for his brother. Having abandoned his dreams he’s abandoned life, and has long since sent his muse packing with aggressive warnings not to show her face around him ever again, in case he’s tempted to follow his ill-fated dream. Being such a sensitive soul, he’s also got a fantastic palate, and could, if he put his mind to it, get some help to look after his brother while he entered and won the next series of Masterchef.

He’d love someone to love, but they have to genuinely understand his inexplicable paintings, and understand his need to cut himself off from the universe on account of the meltdown he’d encounter if anyone tried to coax him back to the limelight.

He probably wears a smoking jacket and/or a beret.

# # # #

Okay, I warned you about the colossal exaggeration! But I’m sure you’ve come across more than a handful of characters who fit these moulds.

In light-hearted discussion with other editors about these main character (MC) prototypes, a theory emerged about a general tendency towards layering traits. What am I on about, you may well ask.

Okay, let’s take the reclusive Mr Clam as our working example. A writer has decided they want their character to have heavy responsibilities, to be on the shy side, and to have almost savant levels of creativity.

It’s a tripartite starting block for the character, and that’s fine. But what can then happen is that the writer come up with a number of ways in which each of those character features are displayed in practice, and puts nearly all of them into use. For example:

Heavy responsibilities

• Never has any time off and can’t get respite care
• Doesn’t have hobbies outside his areas of genius
• Has been battling depression for a number of years.
• Works exclusively from home
• Brother is very hard work and they struggle to get on

Shy side

• Finds it difficult to start or sustain conversations
• Avoids social media
• Gets all shopping home-delivered
• Turns down seminars and courses
• Timid about critiquing other artists’ work because he’s suffering imposter syndrome after so many years ‘off the scene’

Highly creative

• Is excellent chef
• Brilliant artist
• Harassed by mother into arranging flowers for church as a child
• Used to enjoy doing the costumes for drama groups as a teen
• Writes wonderful poetry.

It’s only when you get significant layering of traits under each element that makes up the MC that a painfully familiar character emerges. It’s not about lack of imagination (the contrary, in fact), but about raising the probability that the writer’s using traits which are often seen before because so many of them are being used.

So, how can this tendency towards trait-layering be taken down a notch once it’s been recognised?

Seek out the double-edged swords

In its simplest terms, this means focusing on one particular trait that a character has, and seeing how it works for and against him. Using Mr Clam again:

His work as an artist makes good use of his ability to focus intensely, but he’s terrible at multi-tasking, which means he invariably fails to preheat the oven. He may love home cooking, and have a fantastic palate, but his successes are somewhat hit and miss.

If he struggles with his relationship with his brother, then he’ll need an outlet. He will drive out to get his own shopping but only at one particular store, where the owner is so grumpy that there’s no danger of small talk. He also wants some contact with like-minded souls, so he does do social media, but only Twitter and Reddit. He also still helps the drama group with their sets, but takes items home to work on, rather than doing the painting in situ.

Evolve quirks and contradictions

Perhaps his hand-eye coordination is exemplary, but he has no sense of direction. So, he’s an excellent driver with good reflexes, but cannot for the life of him read a map (a source of endless embarrassment).

He’s shy until someone gets him on a topic which is a bugbear, at which point he has to be silenced with duct tape.

He’s intolerant over issues where he’d be expected to have compassion. Perhaps his brother’s condition and demanding behaviour have caused Mr Clam to emotionally associate immobility with impatience, because that’s what he puts up with all the time.

His dark and angsty painting is phenomenal, but his dark and angsty poetry puts people to sleep.

So, there are a couple of techniques to steer a character off the road oft-taken. I hope they’re helpful tips. To sign off, here are some extremely useful resources for digging into all peculiar corners of the character’s life and psyche:

https://www.amazon.com/Plot-Thickens-Ways-Bring-Fiction-ebook/dp/B007AXPL7M/

https://www.amazon.com/Positive-Trait-Thesaurus-Character-Attributes-ebook/dp/B00FVZDVS2/

We all love stories. It’s in our genes. Humans have been spinning tales for thousands of years. From the sagas our ancestors told as they huddled around their campfires to the ebooks flying off today’s virtual shelves, stories satisfy some deep psychological need.

Sometimes we want a familiar story, even though we’ve heard it a million times before. We anticipate and then enjoy the expected conclusion, which reassures us that all is right in the world. Often, though, we follow a story because we want to know what comes next. Suspense and uncertainty produce a particular kind of excitement., a tension that is pleasurably released when the uncertainty is resolved. Suspense is what keeps readers turning pages long after their normal bedtimes. They don’t want to stop reading until they see how it all turns out.

In genre fiction such as romance or mystery, readers know the final shape the story will assume. The lovers will overcome the obstacles that confront them in order to be together. The guilty parties will be identified, the mechanisms of the crime will be explained and usually the perpetrators will be brought to justice. Part of the reason readers enjoy these genres is that they provide the same satisfying reassurance as a well-known fairy tale or myth. A book that labels itself as romance or mystery then fails to provide the expected pattern of resolution will likely arouse readers’ ire.

This does not mean that stories in these genres should be predictable. As the story progresses, a skillful writer will make the reader question how the expected ending could possibly come about. You’ll lose your reader’s attention if he or she stops wondering what happens next.

Unfortunately, I find that a significant percentage of the romance I read is far too predictable, at least for my tastes. By the time I’ve finished the first chapter or two, I know the general path the story will take. I can’t presume to speak for other readers, but this definitely diminishes my own enjoyment.

As an author of erotic romance, I struggle to add suspense to my own stories. It’s not always a conscious process, but when I sat down to write this post, I tried to analyze the strategies that I use, or have seen others use, to avoid predictability. I identified four techniques that can be helpful in this regard.

1. Withhold critical facts

Even if you’re a pantster rather than a plotter, you’ll generally know more about your characters and their background than you tell your readers. Often there are things in a character’s history that are critical to the plot. By holding back and not disclosing these facts right away, you can heighten the level of uncertainty and make the final resolution more surprising.

I found an example in my ménage story Wild About That Thing. Ruby Jones, the heroine, owns a struggling blues club that represents her life’s dream. As the story opens, she has received a letter from the lawyers for the new owner of her rented building, indicating that her lease will not be renewed and that she must vacate the premises. Her anxiety over her impending eviction colors her reactions to the two men who become her lovers.

Quite late in the tale, I reveal the fact that one of her lovers, Remy, is in fact the building owner. This serves two purposes in the narrative, emotional and practical. First, it adds a sudden obstacle to the relationship (since Ruby is rightfully upset that he had not told her sooner) and also allows the second man in the triangle, Zeke, to come to Remy’s defense. Second, it provides a plausible solution to the problem of Ruby’s eviction.

Keeping important details secret from your readers can be an effective way to add unpredictability, but it does carry the risk of appearing contrived. The new information, when it is finally exposed, must be believable. It must not seem to “come from left field”. If you can, you should drop hints earlier in the story. When the revelation finally occurs, you want your readers to nod their heads, saying “Yes, of course, I should have known!”

2. Keep alternatives alive

Fiction, especially romantic fiction, frequently revolves around a character’s choices. Your heroine may be choosing between two potential relationships, or between a relationship and a life path that will make that relationship impossible. To avoid predictability, you need to paint the competing alternatives as equally attractive and plausible. You should also maintain the ambiguity concerning the character’s ultimate decision for as long as possible.

To implement this strategy, you can use trade-offs. No one choice is perfect. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Highlight those contrasts for your reader. Meanwhile, watch out for stereotypes. The handsome, arrogant, wealthy playboy; the smoldering, tortured bad boy biker; the sensitive, nurturing guy next door… You know what I mean. Stereotypes are a sure way to kill suspense – unless you set them up and then turn them on their heads. This is actually another technique for avoiding predictability. If, for example, the playboy is later revealed to be a submissive who wants to serve as the heroine’s 24/7 slave, you’ll definitely surprise (and possibly delight) your readers.

This strategy can apply to alternative explanations or scenarios, as well as decision alternatives. In my erotic suspense novel Exposure, Stella realizes that any of several people might be responsible for the mayor’s murder and the threats she receives: the mayor’s widow; his opponent in the upcoming election; the sinister mob boss; even the cop who’s Stella’s high school friend and current lover. I try to provide evidence supporting each of these hypotheses. I want to keep the reader guessing.

3. Allow your characters to change

A story is a journey taken by your characters. Events occur and the characters change in response. You can use these changes to make your story less predictable. As the tale unfolds and your characters develop, they will behave and react in ways your reader may not expect. In fact, their surprising behavior will reveal the nature of their inner changes.

The movie “Long Kiss Goodgnight” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116908/) provides a great example. Geena Davis stars as a suburban wife and mother who gradually recovers from amnesia to realize that she’s a former spy. Over the course of the film, polite, conventional, squeaky-clean Samantha morphs into wise-ass, slutty, violent Charly, the top secret agent now running for her life. The shift is gradual. Since you never know (until you see it) how far Charly has reverted to her old self, you never know exactly what she’s likely to do.

Most romance character shifts are less extreme. Just remember that static characters are easy to predict. Also, some change trajectories have become clichés. The uptight, authoritarian female executive who gradually realizes that she craves submission; the woman wounded by past relationships who must learn to trust a new love; the emancipated, free-wheeling chick looking for no-strings sex who discovers instead a deep need for commitment; these patterns have been been employed so often that they’ll kill any suspense – unless of course, you use misdirection, shattering the cliché to send the character off on a new and surprising path of development

4. Take advantage of strong emotion

Characters don’t just change over the course of the story, but moment to moment as well. Even the most stable individuals are not 100% consistent in how they behave, especially under the influence of strong emotion. Anger, grief, guilt, terror and shame can all induce people to behave in atypical ways that would be hard to predict based on their normal personalities. Since such emotions often occur at critical points in your plot, you can use them to introduce the unexpected into your tales.

For example, Kate O’Neil, the heroine of my novel Raw Silk, is a self-confident, independent professional woman. Her first full-blown experience as a submissive stuns and scares her. She actually skips out of work, jumps on a plane, and escapes to the safest place she can think of (in this case, Singapore). This is highly unusual for someone as responsible and career-oriented Kate. Even I was surprised when she did it! The episode contributes to the plot by providing her with an opportunity to reflect on her reactions – as well as a chance for readers to catch their breath.

I’ve been using erotic romance for my examples so far, but non-romantic erotica also has its predictable patterns. Ultimately, readers expect the characters to have some sort of sexual interaction—and more likely sooner rather than later! Readers are in it for the climax, sure, but the experience will be more pleasurable if there are some twists and turns along the way. That’s why I personally find a lot of “stroke fiction” uninteresting and unsatisfying. If there’s no suspense at all, just fucking, the story falls flat. (Your mileage may vary, of course.)

Authors of genre fiction walk a tightrope. On the one hand, we must give our readers the pattern of resolution they expect – a happy ending, in the case of romance, an orgasm (or more than one!) in erotica.

On the other, we want to keep our readers turning the pages, wondering what is going to happen next. We must be faithful to the conventions of our genre while still ringing enough changes to be fresh and exciting. It’s a tall order. I hope that the suggestions I’ve made in this post get you thinking about how you can maintain this balance in your own work.

I think I was about six when I first learnt the whole ‘twelve days of Christmas’ song. Even at that age, the gifts on offer struck me as rather unmanageable in terms of frequency, quantity and accommodation. What sort of man, after all, sends their partner ten leaping lords?

And how does one convey one’s varying levels of gratitude for the continuous influx of peculiar gifts? By email, of course! The finely crafted email is the handwritten letter of yesteryear, and the means through which I intend to convey poor Donna’s yuletide saga…

Is there a learning point in this exercise?  Hmmm… yes, and no.

Yes, in that telling a story in the epistolary form is a good way of making the reader imagine all the chaos happening ‘off-screen’, so to speak.

No, in that it’s December, there’s shopping to do and nativity plays to attend, and I just wanted to write something fun rather than ‘educational’.

Have a great winter break folks, however you choose to celebrate.

^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me… a wanker with a spare key.

Dear Darling

I hope you landed safely in Riyadh and that you got a decent night’s sleep after the rough journey.

I found the sweet little note you left on the kitchen table—you have twenty-four gifts organised for me? Wow! One day at a time, eh? It’s a good thing I work from home; I can catch all those delivery men. 

However, as grateful as I am for the imminent arrival of lovely pressies, I would’ve really appreciated it if you could’ve warned me about ‘Spud’ (what’s his real name?)

I realise that you’ve served together and that he needs a place to stay for a couple of weeks, but he gave me a bloody great shock by arriving while I was in the shower. Literally! He apologised for needing the loo in an emergency, but he didn’t show much sense of urgency while washing his hands and face. That man cleans himself at the speed of a sloth giving himself a pedicure. Thank goodness for frosted shower glass! Let’s hope this has just been a case of first-day teething problems. I’m sure he’ll settle in.

Right – I’ve got dinner to make, so I’ll email tomorrow.

Donna

* * *

On the second day of Christmas, my true love sent to me… two dirty gloves

Hi love, quick text to say thanks for the first pressie. I love the pre-loved gauntlets. They’re very robust. I’m sure that if I ever need to handle a batch of thermite cacti then I’ll stay very safe, lol. Are we getting a stove? I’d love a stove. Some of our neighbours have applied to have one installed and they keep going on about not having to pay for heating anymore. Warm nights by the fire sound ideal to me—especially with that dodgy door leading out to the roof terrace.

Spud made an effort to apologise for springing in on me yesterday by bringing home burger and chips from Tony’s Takeaway. It was a nice thought but—alas, like the gloves—the chips had clearly been ‘pre-loved’ between Tony’s place and my front door.

Hope you’re getting through your first day okay. I know it’s always rough when you go back on tour. xxxx

* * *

On the third day of Christmas, my true love sent to me… three French hens!

Evening Dan

I hope you had a good day setting up and that you won’t get sent out to some grim fox hole straight away.

I now understand the gloves! The three French hens arrived in the early afternoon, and I needed the gloves to round them up and get them out of the kitchen. Damn their claws are sharp! They also move surprisingly fast once released from a cage. For the time being, they’re hanging out on the roof terrace. I had to nip out this afternoon to buy them a hutch (no idea what you call an enclosure for hens), and spent a good couple of hours trying to build it.

Spud isn’t hugely fond of the hens, I’ve noticed. He complains (without a hint of irony) that they’re ‘messy.’ Hmm. Sorry. I WILL try to stop complaining about my sudden house guest. If he could replace some of the red wine he’s been working his way through, then that would be grand.

Are the hens safe with pizza, by the way? I’ve noticed that pizza certainly isn’t safe around THEM.

Much love. I’ll try to call tomorrow.

Donna xxxx

* * *

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me… four calling birds

Hi love

Just a quick note to say thanks for the calling birds. I’m afraid they turned out to be quite temporary presents. Spud left the door of the roof terrace open when he went for a smoke and the birds made a swift exit, stage left. The hens didn’t follow them, you’ll be glad to hear. Mind you, it’s probably a good thing that we don’t have seven birds roaming around the apartment. My neighbours slipped a passive-aggressive little note under my door this evening, asking me if the ban on pets had been relaxed.

You have the greatest imagination for gifts but I’m not sure our flat is really designed to accommodate quite so much wildlife 😉 (gentle hint).

Right, I’m behind on my work so I’d better spend a few hours catching up. Love you lots

D xxxx

* * *

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me… five gold rings!

On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me… Six geese a-laying

Dan

I know things got heated on the phone, and I’m sorry we argued. But I did try hinting that I couldn’t take on any more animals. Goose eggs might be great for Christmas, but the bloody geese aren’t. They’re like miniature forces of destruction. I’ve already had to sell two of the five gold rings to cover the cost of repairing my furniture and getting the carpet professionally cleaned.

It’s all very well telling me to put the geese on the roof with the hens, but these geese:

1. a) are unexpectedly murderous – we only have two French hens now
2. b) aren’t having any of this sit-in-the-cold rubbish. They like being warm, it seems.

We managed to get all six of them outside, but after their streetfight-showdown with the hens, they lined up by the doors, giving us death stares through the glass. Even Spud was freaked out in the end. Sorry love, but tomorrow morning, those geese (and the hens) are going straight to the park on Millbank, where they can squawk, cluck and screech to their hearts’ content.

* * *

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me… seven swans-a-swimming

======================================================

OUTGOING TELEGRAM OFFICE: RAF_LN

DESTINATION OFFICE: SdA_Rh

Attn: Captain Daniel Forrester

======================================================

Stop it with the bloody birds STOP 

Swans are fucking evil STOP

Send me one more bird (or creature) and we’re finished STOP

======================================================

* * *

On the eighth day of Christmas, my weirdo sent to me… eight maids a milking

Dan

I’m tempted to email your CO and ask him to send you for a psych-eval.

What in the name of the fat noodly fuck am I supposed to do with these maids? WE DON’T HAVE ANY COWS! We don’t even have any room for them to sit anywhere, let alone stay here. They’re just wandering around the flat, clenching and unclenching their fists, looking lost, libidinous and weird.

Spud’s cheered up for the first time in a couple of days. He’s convinced he can get at least four of them to ‘milk’ him. He’s an annoying git, but I’ve seen the ‘goods’ and can understand why he thinks he’s a two-maid job.

I’ve spent the money from gold ring #3 on minibus hire so Spud can drop the maids off at various railway stations tomorrow.

I missed my publishing deadline, by the way. Thanks a bunch for keeping me so busy.

Donna

Ps: please, please tell me that there aren’t any cows coming? That should be a stupid question, but I wouldn’t put anything past you anymore.

* * *

On the ninth day of Christmas, my dickhead sent to me… nine ladies dancing

Dan, allow me to summarise. Nine ‘ladies’ dancing in the corridor = eight morally offended neighbours = 7 formal complaints to building management = six rude messages left on my voicemail = five equally irate messages left on their voicemail (I’ve blamed you, by the way) = four dancing ladies being arrested = three arrested ladies demanding I pay their bail = 2 hours sleep last night, and one furious EX-FIANCÉE.

* * *

On the tenth day of Christmas, my ex-dick sent to me…  ten lords a-leaping

You immature tosspot! The last thing I need while I’m packing is a bunch of drunken peers flinging themselves around the flat. I don’t know WHY I even answered the door.

I’ll be as glad to leave Westminster as I am to leave you. Spud was my hero today. Using a cattle prod, he persuaded all ten lords to make themselves useful by carrying all my boxes down to the moving van. It seems that Spud doesn’t like being leapt upon any more than I do.

* * *

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me… eleven pipers piping

Joke’s on you, buster. When you get home, you’re homeless. We’ve been evicted. Spud has found a two-bed apartment in Lambeth. I’m moving in with him.

Have fun sweet-talking the bailiffs and reclaiming your worldly goods from SCARY_BLOKES_STORAGE.com.

* * * 

On the twelfth day of Christmas, your ex-girlf sent to thee… twelve drummers coming

Hi Dan!

Thanks for your call. I couldn’t make out much of what you were saying—you really ought to shout more slowly when calling overseas—but I gather that you objected to the early-morning bukkake shower.  Spud and I both felt that, after so many angry messages, we ought to try showering you with love and affection. I’m only sorry we weren’t there to see you receive your unexpected bounty. And in answer to your question, yes, the drummers will follow you around, alternately drumming and coming for the rest of the day.

I trust there will be no more Xmas gifts from you.

Be well

Your ex, Donna xxxx