Sharazade

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When I wrote the nine short stories that make up Transported, I (naturally) wrote them one at a time. I’d get an idea, turn it over in my mind for a while, write the story down, and then go back and fix it up. Sometimes I’d get opinions from other readers. However, once a story seemed done, I’d move it into my “finished” folder and then work on the next one. When all of the stories were in that folder, I sent them off to the publisher for editing.

When I had the stories back from the typesetter for final checking was the first time I read them all in one sitting. At one point, I noticed that I’d used the phrase hoarse with desire to describe someone’s voice; and it seemed to me I had used that same phrase in an earlier story. I searched and found it, so I changed it in one of the stories. Can’t have two instances of hoarse with desire!

And then… I began to feel a bit hesitant over having even one instance of hoarse with desire. I mean, isn’t that a total cliché? And… aren’t clichés bad? According to the Cambridge Dictionary Online, a cliché is something that people have said or done so much that it has become boring or has no real meaning. Uh-oh. That doesn’t sound too good! I certainly remember being asked in my English classes at school to avoid or remove clichés in my own writing and to criticize them in others’ writing.

Yet I wonder if this holds as true for erotica. One purpose of erotica, frankly, is to turn the reader on; and much of what turns us on is in fact the familiar. The perfume worn by a former lover; fishnet stockings and a garter belt; “our song.” Isn’t it the same with words, sometimes? The words and phrases that move us are ones we’ve heard or read before, for which we have strong feelings and positive associations. That’s why I feel a certain thrill at reading He took her in his arms that I simply don’t feel if I read He grasped her with his limbs. It’s why I feel impatient with erotic stories where too many new ways of referring to the familiar body parts are employed: I’d rather read ten cocks than one meat pestle, one beaver basher, one one-eyed wonder weasel (I wish I were making that up!), one trouser snake, and so on.

Of course, one can’t read (or write) the same story over and over again. I find that I prefer more variation in setting and plot, though. The sex itself, whether between spouses or strangers, two or three (or more!) people, gay or straight partners, is going to involve familiar body parts and familiar actions and yes, familiar descriptions, those keys to remembered desires. But how the people get there, and why? Ah, there is infinite variety to explore.

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I judge books by their covers. In fact, I buy books by their covers. Recently, at the public library’s used book sale, I picked up a book called Flying to Amy-Ran Fastness. I loved the title, because it sounded odd, and then the book was old. Not falling-apart-old, but intriguing-old. Before-my-childhood-old. I thumbed through it a bit. Nice serif font. Aged cream pages. Characters with names like “Jinks” and “Buddy” and “Zargo” and “Yncicea” (no, that’s not a typo). And “Bob.”

Time to look for a blurb. Ah, here it is, just after the copyright page (E.J. Craine. New York: The World Syndicate Publishing Company, 1930):

This fourth book of the Flying Buddies is “chock full” of excitement from beginning to end. The buddies are threatened with death by the appearance of a poisonous snake in their plane; they visit a marvelous underground palace and they witness a man-made volcano eruption which saves their lives.

I forgave the editor for letting someone write “which” where “that” was wanted, and I bought the book. Perfect for bathtub reading, I figured. (Of course I read serious literature too. In more than one language, even. But sometimes I just like the fun stuff!)

That’s how I like to buy books—by picking them up. A title attracts me, or a binding, or a cover picture. I might thumb through a bit, check out the look of the pages, feel the weight of the thing in my hand. Reading for me has always been a tactile experience, not just a visual one. Other senses come into play as well: Some like that “new car” smell; I like that “old book” smell.

In the same way, I like to choose movies by wandering through the shelves, idly looking over the titles. I must be one of the last people in my circle of acquaintances to not have a Netflix account. It does attract me—the variety, the convenience. Yes, I know. But not the browsing, not the physical browsing through shelves, picking things up, turning them over in my hand.

Is it any wonder I have a story in my collection called Just Browsing, which takes place in a used bookstore?

When Transported was published, it came out simultaneously as an e-book, a Kindle book, and a print book. For the first time, then, I thought more seriously about e-books and the Kindle.

My initial reaction was that they must not be quite as satisfying. Yes, the content is there—but what is there to hold? I can see the convenience, certainly. I can understand why some people might not wish to have copies of erotica in hard copy sitting on shelves in their homes, where perhaps young children are learning to read. And so on. But… what about the covers? the pages? the weight of the book in your hands?

It took a friend (an enthusiastic reader of print books too) putting a Kindle in my hands. Now there actually is some weight there, and the “pages”… well, they do look like pages. It’s not the same as a physical book, no. But it’s very pleasant! As he went on at great length about how easy it was for him to add new titles and to organize his books, I couldn’t help thinking about my physical books. The ones on my jammed shelves. The ones on storage shelves in the basement. The ones stacked up in the downstairs closet that holds the winter coats. The stacks at my feet at my work desk. There’s a downside to the physical heft of books too!

I thought of the times I’ve traveled, taking a few slim paperbacks with me so as to keep my luggage light—of course, they’re gone in days, and then what is there to read? With e-books or a Kindle, your next book or your next ten would just be there for you.

And then I began to feel, well… disloyal. If I liked a Kindle, would I get one? If I got one, did that mean turning my back on my hardcopy books? But they’re my friends! I’ve lived on four continents, but I’m still carting around books I’ve had since childhood.

Television didn’t kill radio (although it certainly affected it). The VCR didn’t kill movie theaters (although it certainly affected them). But… multiplex cinemas did contribute to the demise of those grand old theaters. Large chain bookstores and online retailers did push out many small independent bookstores. I don’t feel any particular nostalgia for landline phones, but books? Hardback books, and paperback books, what I still think of as “real” books? Even for the convenience (and perhaps environmental advantages) of a Kindle, I wouldn’t want them to disappear.

However, if I easily see situations where I would want one format and others where I would want another—surely other people do too. Really, the biggest threat to books in any format would be not enough readers. If people have the passion to read, they will seek out books, and probably in more than one way—they’ll buy them new, they’ll lend them to friends, they’ll go to the library, they’ll download them to their laptops and Kindles and cell phones.

OK, I’m going to confess now that Flying to Amy-Ran Fastness was actually pretty awful. The plot was silly, the book was poorly edited, with typos and mistakes all over the place, and the dialogue just made me wince. But you know, in a weird way, I still enjoyed reading it. It made me laugh, and now that I’m done, I will donate it to a used bookstore. Might pick up a few more things for myself while I’m there, even as I contemplate putting a Kindle on my birthday wish list. And I will keep encouraging everyone I know to keep on reading.

This is perhaps the most common question I’m asked after I reveal (well, if I reveal) that I have published a collection of erotica. Or even, as one friend put it, Please tell me you haven’t really done those things!

We don’t ask the writers of murder mysteries if they really killed that many people. We don’t ask authors of vampire stories if they too walk among the undead. Yet erotica writers are frequently asked to what extent their stories are autobiographical.

Partly, of course, it’s prurient interest or mere curiosity. If the writer is not in the habit of discussing her sex life with friends (as I am not), this is their only chance to peek behind the curtains.

However, I think it’s also a question of believability. It’s not just, Did you do those things? but Do those sorts of things really happen?

I recently rewatched the 1996 film Fargo (spoiler alert! If you haven’t seen it and plan to, please skip this and the next two paragraphs!). I first saw it in a theater, alone, in a foreign country. The movie opens, as you may remember, with a black screen with these words lettered in white:

THIS IS A TRUE STORY. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.

I had no idea until I watched it again, this time on a DVD with all the extras at the end, that the story was in fact entirely fictional! (Mark of an obsessive writer: Maybe it was just my DVD version, but the word occurred was spelled on the screen with only one r! Drove me crazy!) Directors Joel and Ethan Coen explained that if the audience believed the events to be true, they would accept more than they would otherwise. Certainly that was true for me, and as an audience member, I am grateful for the little trick they played, as it made the movie better for me. The events were certainly “larger than life,” but I could believe that they actually happened, and that drew me into the story.

I don’t read erotica in hopes of discovering someone’s autobiography. I read it for the escapism, for the chance to visit some very sexy moment. It’s a delicate balance, for me–I don’t want it to be so realistic that it is dull, but neither do I want it to be so fantastic that I cannot put myself there. Break the law of ordinary, yes, but don’t break the law of gravity.

I write the same way, or at least I hope I do. The stories should have enough literary creation that they are just a bit outside the reach of most people’s most days; and yet, you should be able to see that they either did happen in some form, or that they could have. I may have changed dates or numbers or the order of events; some stories have been combined, and others pulled apart; some scenes happened just as I say they did, and others are purely invented. Which are which? I hope you can’t tell.

My settings are all real; I am not clever enough (or enough of a researcher) to write convincingly about a place I haven’t seen. I’ve transited through the Amsterdam airport and stayed overnight in that little capsule hotel. I’ve taken the Amtrak train from the West Coast across the country (though I alighted in New York, and not Chicago), and I was approached by a man with a connection to Herbert Hoover who struck up a conversation about the book I was reading, which was To the Lighthouse. And so on.

These are stories that happened, or that I wish had happened, or that could have happened. Or… that may still happen.

I hope you enjoy them.