Big Ed's Place

So The Ugly One is now released at a handful of ebook retailers, Amazon among them. I’ve of course popped over as a ‘customer’ to see how it looks and have been fine tuning some of the information. Unfortunately, it’s clear that there are two things missing: “customers who purchased this also purchased” and reviews.

Reviews are a funny thing, when you’re on the ‘reviewed’ end. A good one sets the heart aflutter and soaring. A bad one can similarly trigger black moods and second guessing. It’s hard to not take it personally.

At least, in my experience, at first. After enough similar reviews, it stops being relevant. The review becomes as much of a reflection on the reviewer as the reviewed.

For example, I had my annual performance review this past week. It was, for lack of a better word, fluff. I knew pretty much what my reviewer was going to say, even though I’d sent him different names as coworker references than I’d sent last year or the year before. I know what my employer thinks I should do better. I know what my employer thinks I do great. It’s been the same for the past 17 years, even though I’ve been with multiple employers during that time.

That said, when I first started my professional career 17 years ago, those reviews mattered to me. I wanted to understand what they thought of me and I was scared it wasn’t going to be good. So I’d prep for the reviews and do my best to put a good foot forward in the weeks leading up to the review.

So… now I’m looking at Amazon and going, “I need reviews in order to help sell this book.” The hidden question lurking beneath that is, how honest a review do I want?

Because let’s face it, positive glowing reviews help sales. That’s why there are ‘shills’ in the universe, who put up favorable reviews in exchange for something (this happens from time to time in the online reviews of escorts and other sex workers). But at the same time, reviews can often be arbitrary for no particularly good reason. It’s one of the reasons I stopped looking at my scores on Storiesonline. They didn’t tell me anything and when I realized that some people were giving me low scores simply to keep me out of the top 20, I stopped paying attention entirely (and if you haven’t read my satire on scoring on storiesonline, 9.7, go do so now).

But what if I get a quality review and it’s not positive?

Because in writing professionally, I’m really closer to that first or second year kid I was 15-17 years ago than who I am in my daytime job today. I know how good I am by amateur standards (storiesonline, etc.) But pro? I don’t have enough of a track record to be able to do a reasonable self-evaluation.

At the same time, The Ugly One is both my baby and an earlier work with some flaws. I’m a better writer now than when I first wrote it. It’s also more personal than many of my later works. Does the heart balance out the technical flaws? Are those flaws even noticeable?

The fear flows.

Now I know what I will do, of course. On Amazon, I’ll just wait and see what happens. Maybe I’ll get some reviews, maybe not. At the same time, I’ll actively submit my story to professional reviewers. Maybe they’re read it, maybe not. Maybe they’ll like it, maybe not. Maybe I’ll get some good feedback and maybe it’ll turn out that they just hate my style.

But by doing so, the fear won’t win. Which will make it easier for the next book and the next book and the book after that.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I’m on Nick Scipio’s reality team. What that means is that I see and comment on his drafts before they are released.

When Nick sent me the draft for Chapter 11 of Book 4, I argued that it didn’t make sense for Paul and Leah to be excluded from swinging with their parents completely—that there would be times when Sean wasn’t around. Nick disagreed, but we continued to discuss the idea. In particular, I felt that the adults wouldn’t cut Leah and Paul off unless something had happened. I suggested a ‘something’ to Nick and he told me to go write the story. It became Bent.

This one was a challenge because, while the plot was minimal and it was reasonably short, I was playing with many more of Nick’s characters than I did in Dealing with the Devil and I had to make them seem like the same people. Fortunately, Nick helped out and I’m reasonably satisfied with the result.

I also wanted to tackle the incest taboo in a slightly more realistic manner than most of the stories on the internet. Nick’s universe is one of the few on storiesonline where characters engaged in incestual encounters actually have second thoughts about them. I believe the struggle between the lure of the taboo and the recognition that it’s fraught will peril is important to capture. While I didn’t spend a long time with those internal struggles (Chris isn’t David, after all), I hope I did realistically show how the slippery slope of allowing rules to be bent can lead to them being bent more than ultimately desired.

So I’ve discussed how including taboo in a story will increase the readership on storiesonline and other free sites. I’ve discussed how I believe part of that is the nature of the brain chemical speedball we get from the taboo. But those arguments are general, and there’s one taboo that seems to stand above the others in online erotica: incest.

Heck, the whole point behind my story 9.7 was how story codes influenced ratings. And it’s not “beast” that’s driving stories to the top. So what specifically makes the incest taboo so attractive?

My opinion? First, besides the speedball, I think that taboo has an inherent sociological lure. There’s a rush with “being bad” or stepping across the boundaries. It helps reaffirm that we’re not staid boring old farts. We can flirt with the places where there be dragons! If you can’t head for the physical frontier, you can find the sociological frontier.

I think that incest is a particularly good “frontier taboo” because it’s understandable. Not a lot of people can image why scat or bestiality would be arousing, but it’s not a stretch to imagine that an attractive woman has the name “mom” instead of “Susan.”

I also think that many guys remember those early years of puberty when the hormones were in complete control and any woman looked attractive. Boys peeking on their sisters or mothers is pretty common. Many incest stories tap into that and take it to an idealistic fantasy conclusion.

Aside: I think MILF fantasies come from that same era in a guy’s life. He was ignorant but full of hormones. Wouldn’t it have been great to have an older woman teach him all about sex? Maybe not in real life, but the fantasy has some serious grounding in past experience.

There’s of course the Freudian explanations for sexual attraction to our parents. I’m not sure how much I buy them myself. Is it possible to add a sexual attraction to an existing love interest? Sure, but it doesn’t seem causal. Besides, it’s fairly clear in hindsight that a lot of Freud’s theories were because he just couldn’t face the fact that there was a fair amount of child sexual abuse going on by the fathers in his social class.

But that, I think, is where the reason for the taboo shows up. Fantasies, and reading fiction however unrealistic, are one thing. Engaging in the act is another. While I believe that consenting adults should have wide latitude in their private sex lives, consent becomes trickier in familial relations (and note: “consenting” and “adults” are key parts of that sentence).

This is in large part because I’ve never seen a family that didn’t have underlying power dynamics. Even when all parties are adults, the ability to say yes or say no to one’s parents or siblings can be fraught with emotional baggage. My personal example is my grandmother–when she said “you’ll come over Sunday”, it wasn’t a request and all her kids, even the ones in their 50′s, showed up. Even near-age siblings can have such dynamics, making it dangerous water to add in a sexual component.

Which I think is the final part of the attraction. Not many of us grew up in families that were open enough and healthy enough about sex that we could walk into the living room, say “I’m really horny, what should I do about that?” and not freak out everyone else in the family. So the incest fantasy appeals not only for its sexual taboo elements, but for the idealized family elements.

Now, obviously, these are only my opinions and speculations. I’ve never engaged in incest and the overwhelming majority of the people I know personally who have report that it was ultimately damaging for them. But fantasies usually aren’t about the realistic. And in the online world, the ideal, when mixed with a speedball, seems to draw the readers.