\nBy Bob Buckley<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nPlaying
\nwith a person’s emotions is a dangerous thing, but we writers do it all the
\ntime, from the moment we seek to hook our reader with an opening paragraph that
\npiques their curiosity as well as, we hope, tweaks their libido. Then we string
\nthem along, leading them down a path to a conclusion where we hope they say,
\n“Wow.” <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nOr
\nmaybe they’ll just say, “Huh?”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nAlong \nEven \nAnticipation \nWriters \nBut, \nSome \nMy \nUnfortunately \nOkay, \nIt \nI \nMultiple \nA \nGiven \nThe furious backlash told me I had gotten under the readers’ skins, manipulated \nStill, <\/p>\n \nWhen By Bob Buckley Playing with a person’s emotions is a dangerous thing, but we writers do it all the time, from the moment we seek to hook our reader with an opening paragraph that piques their curiosity as well as, we hope, tweaks their libido. Then we string them along, leading them down a path […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2331,1275,1286],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6696"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6696"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=6696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nthe way to one conclusion or the other, our readers begin to wonder where our
\ntale is going. They can’t help it. They build up expectations: Will she sleep with him? Is he going to
\nleave her? Will they live happily ever after?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nthat last expectation \u2013 guaranteed if the story has been labeled romance \u2013
\nstill elicits a guess about how we’re going to get there \u2013 the HEA, that is. We
\nall do it as readers, after we’ve come to
\ncare one way or the other about the characters. Sure we wonder what’s going to happen next, but we also anticipate, which is different – in effect, we try to get ahead of the story, writing our own in our head and seeing if it eventually matches up with the author’s plot. Haven’t we all, at one time or another, said at the end of a story or novel, “I knew that was going to happen,” or, “I saw that coming.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\n\u2013 okay, cue up Carly Simon honking away with that nasally voice of hers.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nof mysteries and thrillers craft their tales around readers’ anticipation and deliberately defy their expectations. It’s
\ncalled a plot twist. It throws you off the rails if it’s successfully executed,
\nif not, it might annoy the hell out of you. But for readers of these types of
\nstories, nothing is more satisfying than a twist, particularly the
\ntwist-at-the-end. It’s then they realize they’ve been manipulated, deceived and
\nperhaps even disoriented. And they love it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nwhat if you’re writing a romantic, erotic story and yank the rug out from under
\nyour reader by leading them to a place they didn’t expect to go? Well, if
\nyou’ve achieved every writer’s goal of getting your readers to believe in your
\ncharacters and invest their emotions in them \u2013 they may end up hating you.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nyears ago I posted a story to ERWA about a pair of what my mother would have called “poor souls.” I wanted to explore why some people, men and women, go
\nthrough life alone and lonely, through no fault of their own.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nmain characters included a lonely guy who couldn’t get a woman to give him the
\ntime of day. You know the type, a guy whose romantic history involves him being
\naggressively overlooked. But like the Lonesome Loser of the song, “he
\nstill keeps on tryin’.” He’s allowed himself to be set up in a series of
\nblind dates \u2013 none of which have panned out \u2013 by a good-intentioned friend. On
\none of these arranged meetings, he’s introduced to a girl who has as sad a
\nromantic history as he does. And voila, they hit it off and have a wonderful
\nnight together that leads to some wonderful sex.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nfor them, I’m telling this story, and I decided from the beginning it was not
\ngoing to end with a HEA. While he wants to continue to see her, she rejects the
\nnotion of them in a relationship. Though she likes him, she thinks
\nit would be tantamount to “settling.” She fears the world will look
\nat them as two losers who couldn’t land anyone better and she won’t give the
\nworld that satisfaction.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nit’s a stupid reason to toss away something magical. Have you ever heard of
\nanyone tossing happiness away for a good<\/em>
\nreason?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nends with her out the door and him sitting on the banks of the Charles River in
\nutter bewilderment.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nwasn’t quite prepared for the vehement reactions to the story, even though I
\nallowed that folks who love a HEA were going to be disappointed. Disappointed?
\nThey were furious! Even some critics who, themselves, were into darker
\nexplorations of the human heart were appalled.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nresponders demanded that I explain what it was about the male protag that made
\nhim repulsive to women. Well, how should I know? Why do nice guys, or for that
\nmatter, nice girls end up alone?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nfew suggested ways I could give it a happy ending. (In fact, I could have added
\ntwo short lines at the end and instantly turn it into a HEA.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nmy sometimes morbid sense of humor, it tickled me to no end that some people
\nwere angry at me for being a prick to my characters. I had struck a nerve.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nthem into caring for and hoping for all the best for my characters. I can’t
\nblame them for being furious, but I’m glad they were.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nit gives a writer pause, does it not?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nyou write, you’re playing with nitroglycerin … be careful.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"