Big Ed's Place

Remittance Girl recently issued a challenge (here). She’d read 50 Shades of Grey and found the sex, supposedly heavily into bdsm, to read like pure vanilla sex. So her specific challenge is:

Have a go at writing the exact same sex act, using nothing but the tone of language and the POV of the narrator to present it as either kinky or vanilla.

My attempt is below. Note that the physical actions and all the words spoken are identical in the two versions. Only the punctuation and observations/judgements of the narrator have been changed.

Also note that I addressed some of this Vanilla vs. BDSM in my guest post at Lisabet Sarai’s blog last week. It’s here, entitled Running the Fuck.

Vanilla Version:

She smiled when she saw our table. In the back corner of the restaurant, it was shielded by curtains and the curve of the wall and almost private. She nodded to the maitre d’ when he pulled her chair out and placed the napkin on her lap. Then she leaned toward me.

“This is special,” she said her eyes bright with anticipation. “What’s the occasion?”

“Our six month anniversary,” I said. With a flourish, I extracted the long flat jewelry box from my jacket pocket and placed it in front of her.

Her eyes went wide. She hesitated just for a moment and looked at me. When I gestured toward the box, she made a small nod and reached for it. The lid askew, she pulled the necklace out.

“It’s beautiful,” she said as she held the thin silver choker up. The sparkle off the metal reflected the one in her eyes. “But….”

“I wanted something you could wear in public that showed what I thought of you.”

She smiled, happy. “I’d be honored.”

“Put it on,” I urged.

She fumbled with the clasp, but then swept her hair back and affixed the choker around her neck. She had to fiddle a bit with getting it to lie correctly; she’d worn a summer halter top dress and had to get the fabric tie out of the way. Once it was in place, she arched her back, displaying the jewelry in all its brilliance. Our eyes met and she smiled, but then grew serious.

“I didn’t get you anything,” she said.

“That’s alright. I know what I want.”

She waited, the corner of her mouth turning up in amused anticipation.

“I want you to flash me.”

“Here?” she said with a laugh of disbelief.

“Here. Undo your top and pull it down.”

Her eyes darted past me to the main room of the restaurant. Since I’d made an early reservation, few other diners were in sight.

“No one can see,” I said. “Please? Show me your breasts?”

She sucked in her breath. “For how long?”

“Until I say stop.”

She gave me one of her “I’ll humor you, but don’t make me regret it,” looks. Then she reached for the knot that held her dress. A moment later, the fabric fell, leaving her nude to her waist.

I sighed happily. Her nipples, hard and stiff, rose and fell with her breathing. I could almost see goosebumps on the curve of her breasts, down and underneath. As I let my eyes trail up her body, I realized she wasn’t entirely nude–she wore the choker after all.

“Thank you,” I said quietly. I met her eyes and nodded.

She quickly pulled her dress back up and re-affixed the knot. A moment later, and not a moment sooner to our mutual relief, the sommelier appeared.

I declined his offer to see the wine list and ordered champagne. “We’re celebrating,” I explained.

She smiled indulgently in return and lightly caressed the silver choker. It was a promising start to what I was sure would be an exciting evening.

BDSM Version:

She pursed her lips when she saw our table. In the back corner of the restaurant, it was shielded by curtains and the curve of the wall and almost private. She nodded. Then she allowed the maitre d’ to direct her to her chair and place the napkin on her lap. She leaned toward me.

“This is special,” she said her eyes wide. “What’s the occasion?”

“Our six month anniversary,” I said. With slow deliberation and almost a ritualistic air, I extracted the long flat jewelry box from my jacket pocket and placed it in front of her.

Her eyes went wide. She trembled just for a moment and looked at me. When I pointed toward the box, she bowed her head and reached for it. The lid askew, she pulled the necklace out.

“It’s beautiful,” she said as she held the thin silver choker up. The cold sheen of the metal matched the wonder in her eyes. “But….”

“I wanted something you could wear in public. That showed what I thought of you.”

Her eyes widened further and she failed to suppress a smile.. “I’d be honored.”

“Put it on,” I ordered.

She fumbled with the clasp, but then swept her hair back and affixed the choker around her neck. She had to fiddle a bit with getting it to lie correctly; she’d worn a summer halter top dress and had to get the fabric tie out of the way. Once it was in place, she arched her back, displaying her new silver collar in all its brilliance. It also thrust her chest out, as I’d taught her to do. Our eyes met and I could tell how pleased she was, despite her calm demeanor.

“I didn’t get you anything,” she said.

“That’s alright. I know what I want.”

She waited, the corner of her mouth twitched as she struggled not to speak; to wait for me as she knew she should.

“I want you to flash me.”

“Here?” she said. Once again she failed to suppress a laugh. That earned her punishment later, of course.

“Here. Undo your top. And pull it down.”

Her eyes, a mixture of fear and anticipation. darted past me to the main room of the restaurant. Since I’d made an early reservation, few other diners were in sight.

“No one can see,” I said firmly. “Please. Show me your breasts.”

She sucked in her breath. “For how long?”

“Until I say stop.”

She gave me one of her “If this is what you wish” looks. Then she reached for the knot that held her dress. A moment later, the fabric fell, leaving her nude to her waist.

I sighed, satisfied. Her nipples, hard and stiff, rose and fell with her breathing. I could almost see goosebumps on the curve of her breasts, down and underneath. As I let my eyes trail up her body, I realized she wasn’t entirely nude–she wore the collar after all.

“Thank you,” I said. I met her eyes and nodded, quietly giving her permission to continue.

She pulled her dress back up and re-affixed the knot. A moment later, and just a moment too late to my disappointment, the sommelier appeared. He’d missed a chance to see how beautiful my girl was, but I hid my disappointment.

I declined his offer to see the wine list and ordered champagne. “We’re celebrating,” I said.

Her eyes wide, she couldn’t help but agree with her smile. She lightly caressed the silver choker; my gift, my symbol. We had so much more in store for us this night.

I’ve got a guest post up at Lisabet Sarai’s blog. It’s called “Running the Fuck” and discusses the influences of bdsm on my vanilla erotica. Check it out.

Remittance Girl (RG) wrote a nice piece on the the recent Erotica Authors Conference and the future of the erotica genre here. It’s inspired today’s post.

RG starts her riff on the difference between erotic romance and erotica and porn. While I happen to agree that they’re different markets, I must admit I have some up front issues with labels. I’ve come to believe that, in general, labels do as much or more harm than good. The real world doesn’t put things neatly into categories–we can say, “male and female” but then what about those born with XXY chromosones? Even “alive” and “dead” become fuzzy at the microscopic level, like with viruses, and at points near the end and beginning of life. A story I write is what it is. Adding a label of one kind or another doesn’t change the story itself.

The problem is, labels are extremely useful on the consumer’s end. There’s really not much difference, musically, between pop rock and heavy metal. Same beat, same tempo, and in many cases the lyrics would be indistinguishable on the written page. But by adding the accoutrements of one or the other, it helps the consumer say, “oh, Judas Priest is in the same category as Metallica and I like Metallica, so maybe I’ll like Judas Priest.” When we lack the sophisticated algorithms now coming online for things like Pandora radio, the categories are one of the few tools a consumer has to help them find new stuff they might like.

In fiction, this can be most strongly seen in author loyalty. I like what Dan Simmons writes. I’m therefore very likely to buy his next book, even though he hops genres a lot. I’ll at least look it over in the bookstore instead of picking up an “unknown to me” author next to them.

The interesting challenge with labels, though, is when a category grows. Back in the 20′s, readers had Weird Tales. Horror, fantasy, and science fiction were all rolled into one. As those genres grew in popularity, they split. We’ve then seen refinement of labels within those categories. We have “urban fantasy” and “steampunk” and “hard science fiction” and “space opera.”

In my opinion, erotica is at a similar threshold. In the fifties, Lawrence Block the mystery writer used to keep himself afloat by writing “sex books.” They were all nudge nudge wink wink to the point where they couldn’t quite be classified as pornographic. At the same time, there were a few classics floating around, hard to get of course, that defined ‘erotica’ simply because they were all there were. The Victorian Era novel “Autobiography of a Flea” plotwise isn’t much different than a lot of porn today. It’s about the sex. Anais Nin’s stories are pretty, but to me they’re little more than naughty sexy dreams. I can find hundreds of equivalents online today that would be classified as anything from mainstream fiction to hard core porn.

The genre has grown enough that the overarching label is not sufficient.

The fact that it’s grown should be obvious. Heck, erotica is finally big enough to have a conference. It’s certainly more accessible and widely available in the internet era than before. More small presses are flourishing and more authors are sticking with it instead of just using ‘sex books’ as a stepping stone to a ‘more respectable’ genre.

So we’ve got erotic romance, erotic horror, erotic fantasy, and other hybrids where erotica grafts its explicitness onto another genres conventions. I think that’s good for the genre overall, because there will be some crossover in readers and writers. Even if the crossover is minimal, there’s at least a greater acceptance that explicit fiction is okay.

However, it leaves a gap that is what Remittance Girl is complaining about, in my opinion (I’m putting words and motives in her mouth which I’m sure she’ll jump all over me on, but allow me the presumption for a moment). We don’t have have a “hard erotica” subcategory like “hard science fiction.” As the hybrids have gelled, the middle core doesn’t have its own distinguishing terms. This is important, because otherwise the stuff that’s not erotic romance or erotic horror etc. is just the mush between. Instead of taking the big box of erotica and divvying it up into subcompartments that can appreciate and recognize and respect each other, we’ve got “erotic romance” and “porn” and “all that gunk that no one can sell.”

“That gunk” needs to be marketable on its own. I’m honestly not sure how to do that. As RG points out, erotic romance can borrow the marketing approaches of romance, which has already wrung out what works and what doesn’t. For better or worse, porn has similarly completed that wring out (though the resurgence of amateurs and more artistic European porn gives me hope that we’re not doomed to Southern California sameness, even if it’s that sameness that defines profits). What’s the approach for the yet-to-have-a-good label erotica that’s not either of those?

Unfortunately, I think figuring out how to do that is not something that even a small group of people can force into being. It’s going to take some trial and error and some evolving general consensus. It’s going to require readers, and more importantly buyers, as much or more than writers and publisers. For example, if the stuff that’s left gets called “literary erotica” or “sexual fiction” (my personal choice), it’s got to show that the label attracts buyers. We have to get to the point where they say, “oh, I liked this story by Nobilis Reed, and he calls it XXX, so I’ll look at books by Big Ed Magusson that are also called XXXX.” But, like belling the cat, it’s not obvious how to get there from here.

I think if we can solve that, though, we’ll help writers and artisans in much the way Remittance Girl wants.

Monday of this week, I was chatting (tweeting actually) with a couple of other authors about some story ideas and one of them said he had a great one “If I can ever get it down.” Man, do most writers know that one. Ideas are easy. Working them into a viable story is fun. Finding the time to ‘get it down’ on paper–that’s the challenge all too often.

Amusingly, I was blessed this past weekend with having some time. It was an unintentional Father’s Day gift. Saturday morning I had a great idea for a science fiction story. Saturday afternoon, my wife and my son both went down for naps. Fortuitously, I had no pressing chores and so I could fire up the laptop and write. Sunday afternoon the pattern repeated. Between the two, the story was done. I decided to get gutsy and even submitted it to a magazine Sunday night. I love online submissions.

It worked because the creative juices were flowing just when I coincidentally had time to write. A few more chores, or a planned activity or two, and it wouldn’t have happened. The creative juices would have had to wait and hopefully not dissipate until I had the time. If they had, I’m sure the resulting story would have lacked the flair of the original inspiration. I might have had a different story off the same idea when the juices did return and it may have been as good, but it certainly wouldn’t have been the same.

But I think having “if I can ever get it down” is a good thing. When I first started writing, I had time. The words were slow, though, and I constantly second-guessed myself. I was slow because of issues with the creative flow and not with my schedule.

Those days are gone. Which feels like a good thing. I’m certainly more productive.

And one of the wonderful things about talking with other writers is that this seems to be a common evolution. Time becomes the problem and appears to remain the problem even for the full time pros. So I’m happy to be at this stage.

And now it’s time to get the next one down.

So I had one of those disheartening moments that sometimes hits writers. I had to rip up a story and throw it away. It was California Dreaming, which I’d started and finished last week. Unfortunately, it pushed Summer Camp canon beyond what Nick Scipio could accept. That’s fine. It’s his universe and I’m a guest. We did find a way to convey the heart of the story in something that would fit, but I’m basically starting from scratch. I must admit the fire to work on was tamped a bit.

That said, this is really one of the cases where getting back on the horse matters far more than the damage done. I haven’t gone into a funk or slowed down on my writing. Instead, I just switched to another work in progress and pushed on. And, as I said, there’s still the core of a story there. Later, I came back and started working on expanding that core in an acceptable way, this time under the working title Florida Daze.

But getting it ripped up made me think about writing and critique groups.

Now I happen to believe there’s a very good place for a writing community. This can be hard lonely work and it’s wonderful to talk to people who ‘get it.’ In my experience, there’s lots of emotional support and encouragement. I wouldn’t have been writing if it hadn’t been for such a community formed by Girl Friday.

There’s also a place for a critique group. I know what I intended to write. It’s harder to evaluate whether I accomplished what I intended. I know that’s true for many other writers. So, if we can, we get either a group or a small coterie of trusted beta readers.

The thing is, I’ve also seen critique groups that do the ‘rip up.’ Heck, I’ve done it before I knew better. The thought of the ripper is that they’re helping make things better. But are they? I’m not sure they really are.

For one, it hurts. Even done with kindness. Sometimes pain’s necessary, but I think it takes a particular mastery of the subject material plus compassion to tear something apart without inflicting unnecessary pain.

For another, I’ve come to believe that all too often, the critiquer doesn’t know anything either. The critique is “this is how I would do it” not “this is what’s wrong with it.” Sometimes there’s a better idea in there, but should the writer really listen? There’s a risk of drowning out the writer’s voice if they make every change suggested.

In this case, Nick’s critique was dead on in some spots and off in others, in my opinion. That’s why the story core might be salvageable. It’s less of an edit than a rewrite in a new direction that will hopefully work.

So Florida Daze is up to 2240 words, with about 462 of them salvaged from California Dreaming. That means I ripped up and threw away over 3/4 of the original story. It also means I managed a little less than 1800 new words this past week.

Meanwhile, I worked on Giving Thanks in and around Florida Daze and added another 581 words to it, bringing it to 987. That gives me about 2300 words for the week, which is a good week.

Furthermore, by getting back on the horse, the pain went away fairly quickly. That’s always good and one of the reasons why getting stuck on a ripped up piece is self-defeating.

This past week, another author started a story in the Compassionate Courtesan Universe. My ‘job’ in reviewing it is to check for consistency with canon. It’s been an experience that’s more surprising than I expected.

For one, I have to be vigilant about what’s ‘not canon’ and what’s ‘not the way I’d do it.’ Fortunately, the other author is experienced enough that I don’t have to worry that he’ll write a lousy story. It’s a lot harder to separate out style critique from ‘that’s crap’ critique than to just restrict my comments to ‘that’s not consistent with canon.’

Of course, part of the fun and surprise is when he invents new canon. I get much the same pleasure from Tzratzk’s art. “This isn’t exactly what I envisioned, but it’s not wrong, so why not go with it?” I’m definitely looking forward to the story.

So what does this have to do with my writing status?

Well, this week was largely editing. I worked on Unmasked and will post it within the week, hopefully. I also edited a short science fiction story I got back from the universe’s owner. I’d written it as fan fiction and then emailed it to the universe author, saying I don’t know what to do with this. His response was, “good story, but it’s not really in my universe. Get it out there.” So I’ve been tweaking it in order to make it stand alone independent of his universe.

Even my new writing has been canon related. I had a queue jumper this past week–a story that insisted on getting out of my head onto paper (strange analogy since it’s really onto the hard drive). It’s a Summer Camp story (working title “California Dreaming”) and I knocked out 1900 words in a few hours. The problem is–it doesn’t really fit Summer Camp canon. So I’m staring at it going, “now what?” I’ll probably set it aside for a while and work on other stories until I can either figure it out, talk it through with Nick Scipio, or decide to abandon it.

It’s a challenge. But all these canon issues have been fun. Hopefully reading the results will be too.

Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to critique the work of a handful of other authors. It’s a challenging and interesting endeavor.

Critiquing differs from reviewing in the intended audience. When I review something, I’m doing it for the potential consumers of whatever I review. On this site, my reviews are for you, the reader. I have no obligation and indeed no particular concern for the providers. I don’t worry about whether they like or are offended by my review. I don’t provide suggestions for them to possibly undertake. I might see how something could be improved, but mentioning it is mostly to inform the readers about a perceived shortfall.

Critiques, however, are for the producer. The author ultimately wants feedback on how to improve their writing–if not in that specific story, then in some future story.

This is hard.

I’ve read many critiques that were merely typo and grammar corrections. I’ve read many critiques that were two sentence attaboys. I think these are only of minor assistance. Sure, catching typos always helps, but it doesn’t go to the heart of writing. Similarly, I’m thrilled to know someone liked my work enough to write me the two sentences, but beyond that, such critiques don’t offer me much concrete to work with. When I was a new writer, those attaboys were wonderful and almost necessary in getting me to continue to write. Writing is a lonely enterprise and a writer is a lousy judge of their own work (we know what we intended to write, which makes it hard to evaluate what we actually wrote). The praise is a lifeline to sanity.

The next level up in critiques is when the person doing the critique gets enough sense of the story to know how they’d do it. What they’d do differently and, without not necessarily being conscious of it, what it would take to make it better. Often such a critique is very insightful.

The hard part with this is that the critiquer might not be any better than the author. Furthermore, the author may not have enough sense of their own style to realize they should say no.

For example, I recently sent my science fiction story to a friend for a critique. He thought the main character was too sarcastic to be sympathetic and suggested some changes. Sympathetic main characters are important, right?

Except I knew that making any of his suggested changes would completely change the tone of the piece. The story was greys and blacks with a lightning dash of white. Turning the main character into a warm lush human wouldn’t have accomplished my goal.

Which gets to the heart of the problem of a critique. The person doing it has to be capable of separating out what’s really wrong with the story from what the critiquer says is wrong with the story. They might not be the same thing.

And, being aware of this, it’s made it hard to do critiques. I can sift through and see what I really think is wrong and report on that. I can point out inconsistencies in plot. If I know the author well enough, I might even be able to point out inconsistencies in tone or voice. But after that…

I’ve decided that the best ‘art’ is simply to convey my reactions as a reader. It doesn’t make the author wrong or right–merely informs them of what one reader went through and felt. I’m not sure that it’s what will be expected in many quarters, but I do, in the end, hope it helps more than other approaches.

We’ll just have to see.

This past week, I had the pleasure of having lunch with Monocle, a fellow author in the Tentacle Dreams anthology. He’s the third erotica author I’ve met in the flesh after becoming acquainted online and all three times have been both a delight and a surprise.

Now some of this is the standard dissonance that occurs in meeting someone for the first time that you’ve already gotten to know through the ‘net. I learned in internet dating (which I did for a few years and is how I met my wife) that it was actually pretty important to arrange that first meeting before one’s impressions had solidified in the mind. When all we have is words and maybe a photo or two, our minds fill in the gaps to define the ‘character’ we’re corresponding with, much like we do with fictional characters. I found that if I spent too long corresponding before arranging a meeting, then I’d have a more detailed, solid, and wrong image in my head of the woman. The greater the dissonance, the harder it was to stay present on the date and have a good time. Basically, my preconceptions tended to spoil things.

For example, I was constantly being surprised by height. Online, my imagination makes every woman the same height relative to me–which is just a few inches shorter. It doesn’t matter if her profile had said something different, it was how my imagination conjured her up. Of course, I’m 6’3″, so there are very few women only a few inches shorter than me. It makes little difference sitting across a restaurant table, but it’s often surprising standing up.

People online don’t have bad breath, eyes that wander all over the room, or funny moles in distracting locations. They don’t have an intense gaze that can either unsettle or entrance. They rarely have unexpected pauses in conversations and the ability to edit before hitting ‘send’ increases the intelligence of their discourse. Of course, they also can’t hold your hand, give you a kiss, or convey all that a smile can convey beyond an emoticon.

So I learned that the best way to avoid the dissonance was to avoid having built up a mental image ahead of time. That’s easy in an online dating environment–just don’t stretch out the online correspondence. It’s harder for more casual connections. Monocle I had not become acquaintances with the plan of some day meeting, like online dating does. It just happened because of fortuitous circumstances.

What can make it more complicated with an author is that there’s the person in the flesh and the person in their work. Monocle writes much darker stories than he comes across in person. I couldn’t help wondering if people who met Stephen King felt the same way–”Nice guy, but have you really considered what must be going on under the surface?” Of course, being an author myself I had a pretty good idea of what could be going on under the surface and how it related to reality (some, but not enough to be meaningful).

So, for me, the bigger dissonance was he had read my stories. I mentioned the trial to do tight plotting in Dealing with the Devil, and his response was “Oh, yeah, I read that one.” I did a doubletake. Usually, people I’m speaking with face to face knew me before they knew my writing. It was strange to be on the other side, wondering about what impressions my work gave of me.

Of course, most of what we talked about was writing and publishing. That was fun. Not only could we swap stories and comments faster than the internet allows, but we found that in many ways, we’ve had comparable histories. We’ve both been writing for about the same length of time and have recently hopped to publishing some of our work. His focus has been largely on shorter works, but he has a much larger backlog as a result (check it out, he’s good). We had similar experiences in the early online erotica communities and even managed to swap stories about people and places we knew.

Which, I think, was what ultimately made it pleasurable. Here was someone who knew. I didn’t have to explain what it’s like to be a writer. I didn’t have to explain what it’s like to write erotica. I didn’t get confused stares or sidelong glances about what I do. It was freeing and relaxing at the same time.

I had the same experiences when I met the other two authors, though it has been many years since those encounters. It kind of makes me winsome for some such face to face support group, though I suspect I’ll never join or organize one because of real life hurdles. But every now and then… the time with another author in the flesh may be a great touchstone worth having.

An author friend of mine appears to be recovering from a year of burnout. I say ‘appears’ because until he releases his most recent work in progress, it’s hard to tell if this is a true recovery or just a temporary spurt of enthusiasm.

The burnout’s been difficult to watch, secondhand. A lot of it was that he’d hit the dreaded marathon mile 22, when it just hurts to continue, but the end isn’t in sight yet. Some of it was because he had some writer’s blocks that were both subtle and difficult. He didn’t realize how one loose end was slowing him down, even though it wasn’t something imminent in his story. It was like the dirty dishes on the table that make it hard to concentrate on the computer because you keep thinking, “I need to take those to the kitchen” but don’t actually do so. Then add in the fact that his life became more complex and non-writing elements became more emotionally rewarding and thus more distracting.

Like I said, it was difficult to watch. Sometimes he’d complain about not wanting to write. More often, he’d spend a great deal of time analyzing why he wasn’t writing, but the analysis would never turn into actual writing. He’d identify ‘all I need to do is x” and “x” would only last a few days. He was thrashing in emotional mud and there wasn’t much I could do to help.

For writing, especially when it’s not a career, is a largely solitary, self-motivated effort. Outsiders can’t compel creativity to flow onto the page. Bribes can sometimes work, particularly with some people, but not always. There are times when the emotional burden is just so great that an author would rather mop their floor than write another word, even if the rest of the time the writing is a joy.

Which brings me to the flip side and opposite extreme–obsession. Damn. I’ve been obsessed lately with Deep Dish, and this is rare for me. It’s not just the ‘thinking about the story in the idle moments of my day’ that seems to be common for most writers. It’s staying up two hours later than I should so I can keep hashing out a single page of the script. It’s wondering if I’m sitting far enough back in the boring business meeting to pull out my notes and work on it (which would be disastrous if I got caught). It’s spending hours trying to find just the right picture of a 1970′s diner to pass on to my artist so he knows what I’m thinking of (and, FWIW, it’s all but impossible to find such a picture). It’s not wanting to do my standing obligations, or even other aspects of writing that I love (like this post) because it’s taking me away from my obsession.

When I step back from myself, it’s fascinating to watch. It isn’t quite as painful as watching burnout, though in some ways just as scary. Am I going to sacrifice something I shouldn’t? Am I going to push things further than I should in stealing time from elsewhere? What if, despite my obsession, it doesn’t work out, either creatively or as a project? I could do a ton of work and still end up with something that’s either crap or that I can’t get published/finished.

It’s mania, to burnout’s depression.

I don’t know if other authors go through such swings, or if this obsession looks familiar to them. But it’s a wild ride right now. And perhaps it’s just a touch of mania that we need to keep us going sometimes.

Sorry–couldn’t resist. Two of the yahoo groups I belong to had nearly identical posts, from different people, with that title. Such posts occur almost like clockwork. At least once a month, someone will post “I’m looking for a story where xxx and yyyy occurred” and hope that the denizens of the erotica group du jour recognize the story and can provide title, author, and site.

At first, I found such posts great–they seemed to be a good way of helping readers. Then I became annoyed–can’t people bookmark or download stories into their own libraries? It isn’t that hard. These days I’m mostly amused because I realized a handful of implications of such posts.

The first is that anyone actually “looking for a story” much read a lot of stories. I think it’s a lot harder to forget the name of a story you’ve read if you’ve only read a half dozen in the past year. I don’t know what the threshold is, but they can’t ‘blend together’ if there aren’t that many to blend together.

Now admittedly, there’s a time factor involved. It’s much easier to forget titles of stories read years ago than one read yesterday. But there’s still a need for the reader to have read many. If they’ve only read two books in the past five years, the odds are pretty good that, even if they can’t recall the title, they can recall where they got the book or where it’s likely to be now. But even with the time factor–the implication is pretty clear–these people “looking for a story” are very likely to be heavy readers.

Which means they’re fans of the genre. I’ve read maybe one Western in my life. I’ve read more science fiction than I can count. So which is genre is going to contain a story that’s memorable enough for me to recall plot and character details, but that I can’t place exactly? Again, the one with more stories I’ve read.

Complete aside–I do recognize the phenomena known as “misplaced in the library.” My wife and I own 8 seven foot tall bookcases, that are overflowing. And when the toddler came along, lower shelves got emptied and shoved into higher shelves willy-nilly. I have no idea what we own anymore. So I could easily some day ask about a book I actually happen to own.

Having fans of the genre I write in (and read in) is just cool. This is a communication medium, after all, and doing art that no one sees (or reads) is kind of pointless.

The second implication is that some of these stories have lasting power. They’re not ‘read and forget.’ This may be because of the characters and overall story, or it may be because there’s a really hot sex scene that the reader doesn’t want to explicitly mention in their request for help, but there’s something that tugs them back to wanting to reread the story. Stories memorable enough and/or good enough to be reread are just cool.

Second complete aside–I have a shelf that is “meaningful books.” It’s intentionally only one shelf, filled with the books that have had the biggest impact on my thinking and my life. It’s sometimes gratifying to see them sitting next to each other that way, as silent markers of contemplations past.

Which leads to the third implication–they’re not asking for my stories. I’ve seen only one “looking for a story” request for one of my stories in five years. Which means that either my stories are eminently forgettable, or my readers are remembering who wrote them and where to find them.

Now obviously there’s a ‘selection bias’ in that last implication. People who ask the question in yahoogroups where I post are likely to not forget who I am. They are therefore less likely to forget what stories are mine. I’m sure that if there’s someone scratching their head somewhere about a story I wrote, they’ll ultimately post their question in a different forum.

But it’s still cool. If my stuff sticks, it sticks well enough that people don’t need to ask about it later. And that, ultimately is part of what I’m trying to accomplish.