Monthly Archives: March 2011

Mar 31 2011

From Migraines to Crazies: My Experiences with Research into the BDSM Lifestyle

The really great thing about writing fiction is that the creating author can make up a huge chunk of their storyline and the perimeters of what goes on within that storyline and not have to worry about whether or not such a thing does exist or could exist in real life.  Sometimes, however, even in fiction, a little (or even a lot of) research is necessary to make a really good idea plausible in the minds’ of your readers.

This article is not about how to conduct research or why authors need to conduct research. Any author worth a grain of salt already knows that research is a vital part of writing, even for fictional pieces. There are also as many different ways to go about collecting information as there are authors.  What works for one will not always be the way that another author chooses to tackle the all-important step of researching their subject matter for a novel. 

Today I’d like to share with all my fellow writers a little cautionary tale that I experienced while conducting my own research.  Several years ago I began working on a group of short stories involving the BDMS lifestyle.  At the time I was working on a story called “Chained.”  While I had written several short stories for the novel Temptation which included a large amount of BDSM elements, I wanted to write at least one story that portrayed, as accurately as possible, the real emotional bond between a Master and slave. 

I had come across numerous blogs and articles that talked about how “unrealistic” the BDSM lifestyle was portrayed in so many fictional works.  What I have since learned is that there is not any real “hard and fast” rule when it comes to the lifestyle.  Yes, there are countless advice columns, blogs, and many, many people who are willing to give anyone who cares to listen their own personal opinion of how the lifestyle should be.  However, it is all just that: personal opinions.  For every Master and slave that exists, you will find dozens who agree with their way of thinking and dozens who think they have it all wrong.  At the time, however, I wanted something more tangible regarding the lifestyle than just my overactive imagination.

I spent a few weeks reading articles and blogs, but aside from all of them having radically different opinions, they also did not address the key element that I was looking to explore in my story.  At the time I had a Yahoo! 360 page where I was posting some of my erotic fantasy stories.  I had been chatting with a female friend from my page who was supposedly a slave “in real life” as we like to say.  Her “Master” (and I use this term very loosely after speaking with this gi-normous asswipe) agreed to chat with me regarding the lifestyle and the all-important bond and trust factor between a master and a slave.

I must give pause long enough to give my own personal opinion and hard-learned lesson from this little jaunt into the unknown world of BDSM.  If you know absolutely nothing about this lifestyle, whether you plan to just research it for whatever reason or if you are actually wanting to enter it, be you male or female, if you want to protect yourself from harassment, then you must be sure to answer these two questions as follows:  If you are bottom, even if you really -do- wish to eventually find yourself a dom, then when you are asked if you already have a master then the answer is always going to be “yes” until you have done enough research about the lifestyle and the person you are getting involved with to protect your own ass should something go wrong.  And if you are a dom looking for a sub, then when asked if you are looking for a slave then the answer is always going to be “no” until you have done enough research about the lifestyle and the person you are getting involved with to protect your own ass should something go wrong.

For a bottom, if you do not fully understand what you are getting into, then you will end up like the poor woman whom I spent all those months chatting with.  For a top, if you do not fully understand what you are doing then you could end up hurting someone both physically, emotionally, and psychologically.  For those who actively “live” the lifestyle “in real life” (as in, it is NOT role play for them but the way they live their lives 24/7), BDSM is not some game that they turn on and off at their own whim.  It is very much a real part of themselves and their lives.  Of course, you will always have varying degrees of the lifestyle as it depends upon the individual.  What is most important to remember is that, for all intents and purposes, the “lifestyle” is just that, a way of life and not a game.

Here is another reason why, if asked if you already have a master, the answer is always “yes.”  It’s because a huge chunk of masters (not all, mind you) sees an uncollared (i.e. unclaimed) slave as an invitation to take what he wants.  And some of them have problems understanding the word “no” when it is used in this context:  “No, I do not want to be your slave.”  Unfortunately, the “master” I got tangled up in while doing my research not only did not understand the meaning of this phrase, he also saw my “status” as a collared slave as a challenge to try to steal me away from my “master.”

So here is the story.  The woman I had been chatting with through my Yahoo! 360 page, we shall call her “Jane,” asked her “master” if he would be willing to speak to me openly about their relationship.  I was quite happy to learn that he was willing to allow me to interview him with questions regarding my research into the emotional bond between master and slave.

We began chatting through the PM function of the Yahoo! 360 page and then progressed to Yahoo! IM.  One of the very first things he asked me was if I had a master.  While I love reading and writing about the lifestyle, I do not live it, but I already knew that the answer to this question should be “yes” if I did not want to be hounded by any master trying to convince me to become his slave.  So, of course my answer to his question was, “Yes, I already have a master and no, I do not want to switch masters, thank you kindly just the same.”  I was always very formal and polite, but I made it very clear in the beginning that I was not looking for a master and was only interested in doing research for my story.  I had given him my own set of “rules” so to speak, in so much that he was not my master and I would not call him “Master” or “Sir” (outside of common courtesy) and that the only sexual undertones that would come into our conversations would be expressed in regards to his experiences as a master.  I was not looking for any type of “relationship” and was not looking to “cyber” with him or anyone else.  I was merely doing research.

Well, as soon as he learned that I was already “collared” he asked me who my master was.  I immediately replied, “My husband.” 

My answer made perfect sense to both myself and my husband.  I am, after all, a married woman.  I was not looking for any type of relationship, not looking for some “fun” on the side or anything of the type.  He already knew that I was married, so to me, stating that I had a “master” that was someone other than my husband would give the false impression that I not only had sexual relations with other men outside of my marriage, which is not and has never been true, but also gave the impression that I was open to the idea of having a sexual relationship with someone other than my husband, which was also untrue.  Stating that my “master” was my husband was the only logical answer, and it is the answer that I still give to this day whenever I talk to anyone regarding the BDSM lifestyle.

This man’s instant reaction to my statement was to inform me that husbands weren’t real masters and should not ever be the master of their own wife.  He laughed at the notion, scoffed at my “relationship” and took every opportunity to belittle me as a woman.  I remained as polite as possible at this time, constantly steering him back to the questions that I had mapped out for my research for the story.

What I later learned was that this guy was a truck driver who made a habit of sweet-talking lonely housewives into becoming his “slaves.”  He then criss-crossed the country, using these poor women as his own personal sex slaves.  He made no attempts to hide the fact that he “owned” multiple “slaves” but yet he somehow managed to brainwash these women into not only being okay with him sleeping around, but also that each and every one of them were special to him in some way. 

Now don’t get me wrong.  I realize that such arrangements of a master having more than one slave at a time do actually exist and the women/men are quite happy with the way things are run.  The reason why these two individuals’ situation sent up red flags for me was the simple fact that this woman was married, with children, and doing all of this behind her husband’s back.  I could see the potential for their “arrangement” to go very wrong.  The woman herself did not seem capable of any real thought on her own, merely regurgitating the same lame-ass shit that her “master” kept saying.  One thing that I had learned through my research is that, while a slave gives herself mind, body and soul to her master, they are not stupid by any means, and certainly not incapable of individual thought.  The whole situation with these two left a bad taste in my mouth.

The next few weeks were spent with him and the lady I had met him through trying to convince me to become another one of his slaves.  The more I resisted the harder he pushed, until his “polite” façade disappeared completely.  He used “Jane’s” 360 page as his own personal rant space, calling me every insulting name he could think of, writing blog posts that stated I was a stupid whore, talentless, that my husband was not really a man, etc.  It was not until I posted several of our Yahoo! IMs to my own 360 page and let all of his “supporters” see how he was speaking to me that finally got him to shut up and leave me alone. The BDSM community in general ousted him because he had violated the all-important rule that another master’s slave is off-limits and to disrespect the slave is to disrespect the master.  The entire back-and-forth mud slinging matches were very disturbing and had me wishing I had never decided to write the story.  In reality, it ruined an experience for me that should have been informational, open, and honest.  It had me thinking twice about the entire BDSM community, which is a tragedy unto itself, because I really do find the BDSM lifestyle, community, and its members incredibly facinating.

Getting back to my tale, I had told “Jane” that soon her “master” would get tired of her and replace her with someone else.  He did not respect her as a woman, a person, nor as a slave, something that most tops actually have for their bottoms.   A few months after I finally got her crazy “master” to stop harassing me, Jane sent me a heart-wrenching IM telling me that I had been right about everything.  Her “master” had dumped her, giving her the excuse that he could not keep up with so many slaves and so she had to go.  To add insult to injury, her husband had not only discovered what she had been doing, but he also used all the posts and PMs from her 360 page to convince a judge that she was a danger to her children’s welfare.  Her husband divorced her and got sole custody of their two children. 

What I learned from all of this is that much like investigative journalism, sometimes authors who decide to do “real life” research with people instead of hardcopy sources can also put themselves in danger.  While I was not in any real physical danger from this person, I was still cyber-stalked and harassed, receiving unwanted IMs and PMs from a psychologically disturbed individual.  I scratched the story I was working on, thinking I was better off just using my imagination for inspiration on this one.

As an author, I learned a valuable lesson.  I now know that doing research before doing research can often help you keep a cool head when faced with something unexpected.  Unfortunately, my experiences with this person dampened my desire for trying to learn about a lifestyle that I still find very interesting.  I do plan to one day finish not only that story, but the rest of the series.  This time, however, if I choose to find a “real life” master to interview, I will make certain that I get to know him as a person first and a master second.

Mar 29 2011

Creating a Cover – Part I – The Killer Title

Momma Said ‘Knock You Out!’ – Creating a Cover Part I – The Killer Title

When it comes to books, unlike the well-known clichéd saying, they really are judged by their cover.  If you want a cover that shouts “Pick me! Pick me!” then you are going to have to be extremely creative with not only the cover design itself, but the title of the book as well.

Part One of “Creating a Cover” deals with coming up with a fantastic book title.  Often times this step can be as hard as writing the novel itself.  There are several things that writers need to keep in mind when it comes to creating that perfect book title.

1.  Perhaps one of the most important parts of picking out a title is to make sure the title you have chosen has not been Trademarked or otherwise forbidden by law.  According to Lloyd Jassin, “Trademark and unfair competition law protects against confusingly similar usage of source identifying words and designs (including book jacket design) by another. If you wish to publish a book, or launch a series of books, you run the risk that someone may have already obtained rights to a confusingly similar title.”1  In other words, while you cannot copyright a title of a book, Trademark law will prohibit an author from using a previously trademarked phrase or word if people seeing your title will be confused about the sponsorship or source of the book.  It is very important, as an author, to search out your chosen book title to make certain it will not infringe upon any type of held Trademark. (props to Michael C. Laney for reminding me of this crucial step)

Jassin states, “In any trademark infringement case, the key issues are “Who used it first?” and “Was it used on confusingly similar goods or services?”…  Merely descriptive marks are not entitled to exclusive protection without establishing secondary meaning. By secondary meaning, I mean well-known marks that call to mind a particular publisher, producer or manufacturer… Generally, titles of works that are part of an ongoing series are protected under trademark and unfair competition law….Unlike series titles, titles of a single work, whether a book, periodical, song, movie, or television program, normally, will not be protected under either trademark or unfair competition law. This is one of the quirks of trademark law. To quote the USPTO, “Regardless of the actual relation of the title to the book,” courts treat all single title works as “inherently descriptive” at best and “inherently generic” at worst – unless the single title has had “wide promotion and great success.”1

This is to say that a single book that is not part of a series, under normal circumstances, would not infringe upon any type of Trademark or fair competition law.  There will always be exceptions.  As an author, it is always better to be safe than sorry as having to recall a novel after its publication can be costly if done through mainstream channels or if self-published.  Likewise, it can cause a lot of professional embarrassment.  Series titles, however, are normally protected under fair competition laws and Trademark laws.  If you plan to market a series of novels, it is a very good idea to file an “intent to use” or Trademark the series title to ensure that no other author uses the same title for a series of novels.

If you have the resources, it is always best to have a professional do a search on the title you intend to use to make certain that you are not infringing upon any known Trademark.  An extensive internet search, however, can do in a pinch.  If you think you have a particularly clever title or one that possibly has long-term marketability, then you may want to invest in filing for a Trademark to ensure that you not only have full usage rights to that title, but also to ensure that no one tries to take that title and use it to divert sales away from your own novels or other publications.  Trademark not only protects your title, but it also protects the goodwill that has become attached to the title.  Having a filed Trademark keeps other from trying to cash in on that goodwill and not only making profits from the goodwill, but by possibly ruining the goodwill that people have come to associate with a particular author or title.

You can do your own search for Trademarks by going to The United States Patent & Trademark Website

2.  Title Length – Some novels will have long titles, others short.  Generally speaking, a short title is often better than a long one for the simple fact that people can remember a two or three word title better than a title that consists of seven or eight words.  Think of such modern-day classic titles as Stephanie Meyer’s series Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn.  The titles are short and relatively easy to remember.  Other modern classics such as Ulysses by James Joyce, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Dune by Frank Herbert all have short, easy to remember titles.  Other titles such as To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee and The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien are longer, but they are catchy and descriptive.

3.  Description – Titles need to be descriptive so that they are easier to remember, such as the examples in the last sentence.  A catchy, descriptive title is easier to remember than a title that either consists of non-descriptive words or does not describe or “hint at” the storyline of the book.  Some titles are named after a key character of the book, such as Anne Rice’s Lestat and Laurell K. Hamilton’s Micah.  In the case of my own novel The Red Fang, the novel gets its title from a nightclub that is never actually mentioned in the book itself. 

If you plan to create a series of novels, you may choose to base the titles on a central theme, such as what happened with Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series.  Be careful to not choose titles that are so common place that a dozen different novels have been written with the same title.  You also do not want to choose a title that has absolutely nothing to do with the book.  In the case of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Cerulean Sins, the title had absolutely no connection with anything in the book that I, as a general reader, could understand.  Also be careful in using titles that are “inside jokes” or allude to something extremely vague in the storyline that most casual readers will not understand.  ‘Play on words’ can also make or break a title, depending upon whether or not the reader picks up on it. 

However, picking such titles that allude to vague instances in a storyline can work to your advantage.  For instance, the final novel in the BEFORE THE SUN RISES trilogy eludes to a very little known fact surrounding the name of the main character in the first novel, The Red Fang.  Most readers will not make the connection between the main character’s name and the title of the last novel.  However, I plan to use this tidbit of information to my advantage and include an afterword in the final novel that will help bring all three novels into focus and clear up some loose ends that may or may not be plaguing the minds of my readers.

Whatever your title of choice, the title is often the first impression your readers will have of the novel.  Like it or not, that title will either draw the reader in and make them want to find out more about the novel, or it can turn them off to the point that they pass by your novel without so much as giving it a second glance.  You will want to pick something catchy and memorable, something descriptive that will either hint at the storyline or at least give the reader pause to stop to contemplate on what the title could mean.  As a writer, your ultimate goal is to have your novels read.  That first introduction starts with the title.  If you can grab your readers’ attention with a good title, then you will have won the first battle in getting them to read the rest of the story.  Remember, when it comes to novels, you really do only have one chance to make a good first impression.

  1 “Trademark Law and Book Title” by Lloyd J. Jassin

http://www.copylaw.com/new_articles/titles.html

Mar 27 2011

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery – Or So I Am Told

As a mentor to budding writers, the most important thing that I wish for them to learn is to find their own unique writing style and run with it.  The last thing you want to do is end up sounding like a poor imitation of a great writer.  But what if you are the writer who is being imitated?  Would you be flattered?  Quite possibly.  Now what if the person who was imitating your style is the one getting all the rave reviews, the reads, and the huge following while you, the originator of the style, are left standing in the dust.  Would you be flattered, or angry?

I have not only seen this happen to many great writers, I am one of the greats that has had my style ripped off by people who do not even consider themselves ‘writers’ or take the craft very seriously.  I’ve had people imitate my style, slap together a piece of crap onto paper that took them less than an hour to write, and then see hundreds of readers fawn all over them, telling them that they are a great writer.  I’ve seen the same people who told me that my work was “too hard” to understand because of my complex writing style fall all over themselves to praise another “writer” on how their complex sentence structure really added to the flow of the story.  Qualities that readers hate about my work ( the complex sentence structure, informal writing style and feel of retelling a story rather than it being written on paper) are the same qualities that these same readers gush about to other ‘writers’ who have either never written anything before in their lives or who do not take the art of writing very seriously, or who just do it ‘for fun’ or ‘a hobby’ or, heaven forbid, those who did it ‘just to see if they could’ or, perhaps the worst excuse of them all, ‘just because.’  And, perhaps the situation that ruffles my feathers the most, is the long-winded novel/story/etc that has been written by a half-dozen different people who then decided to promote the piece under a single pseudonym, giving the very distinct impression that one person sat down and came up with the whole storyline and wrote, proofread, and edited the entire five billion word piece when, in fact, it took the combined efforts of a small army a few years to come up with the end product.

For some of these so-called writers, plunking down a short story during their lunch hour to post on a porn site to raise their popularity status is their way of feeling important.  Needless to say, if you are the one pouring your blood, sweat, tears, and heart into a piece only to have the writing style that you spent decades developing blatantly ripped off by someone else is a hard pill to swallow.  Having that person getting all the great reviews and fan base is adding insult to injury.  Add on the fact that someone who had the help of numerous people is getting wondrous reviews while pretending that the work in question was written by a single individual is like having someone spit in your face. 

Where does that leave writers who have had their writing style imitated?  With about 2 million writers in the United States alone, it is really hard to come up with a unique idea, much less a unique writing style.  So how can you even prove you are being imitated.  If you post stories on blogs, websites, or open forums and have any type of following then someone coming along and imitating your style to gain their own following is quite easy.  Having something in publication that reaches thousands or more makes it even more probable that you could become the next author to be “flattered” by an imitator. 

The cold, hard truth of the writing world is that no matter how good you are, writing is more of a popularity contest than anything.  You are guaranteed to have at least one person out there who will love your work and read everything they can get their hands on that is written by you.  You might even luck up and get a small following of fans.  For those whose writing inspires a nation, they may find themselves an overnight sensation, but that doesn’t mean that they are a good writer.  Many, many writers will tell anyone who will listen that Stephanie Meyer isn’t “all that” when it comes to being a good writer.  It actually boggles our mind on how such an elementary form of writing could have gained so much attention while really great artists such as Anne Rice have not received 1/3 of the recognition.  The difference is that Stephanie Meyer, for whatever reason, won a very picky popularity contest.

One thing that writers have learned is that fans are fickle.  While someone like Stephanie Meyer may be enjoying an overnight success such as it were, tomorrow the reading public could very well toss her out on her butt in favor of someone with less talent than even she possesses.   In the end, it won’t matter how great of a tale you can weave or that the latest craze sounds just like you.  Unless you can somehow figure out how to gain the upper-hand in the popularity gig, you may very well be doomed to sit in the shadows while a poor imitation of you shares the limelight with a dozen other imitators.

The only good news?  Those who imitate an author can never write as good as the originator of the style.  While they may enjoy a few moments in the sun, those of us who have been writing for years, with talent to spare, and enough ideas to keep writing for decades to come, we shall enjoy many more moments in the bright glow of success than any pale imitator.  While the imitators may write, at most, a few million words because they decided to ‘see if they could’ write that great novel, what happens once they have squeezed all the reads possible out of that piece of work?  Chances are, they are not going to write anything else simply because they never had the talent to compete with writers who have decades of experience on them.  Once their fifteen minutes of fame are up, they will be gone forever, fading into the background from which they came.  They are, after all, mere imitations, and while imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, it cannot replace an original.

Mar 18 2011

Would You Rather Be Plagiarized or Not Known?

A post by a member of a story forum I frequent had me pondering this question:  Which would be worse to you as a writer, being plagiarized but having your work read all over the internet, or having it sit inside your computer never to be read by anyone?

Personally, I would rather have my work sit inside my computer and never see the light of day before I would ever want someone to post it and take credit for my hard work.  I don’t care how many people read it, what kind of rave reviews it got, or even if it meant passing up a great book deal, I would absolutely not want my work plagiarized.

The poster had said he would rather have his work read, even if it meant being plagiarized, because it would be known by so many people and would make it easier to become a bestseller of some sort.  And if, in the event it was made into a bestseller of some sort, it would be easy enough to find the original author.  I completely disagree with this.  There are no telling how many bestselling books have been written, how many blockbuster movies, and how many number one songs have been blatantly ripped off and the original author was never the wiser. 

Ponder this, if you would, for a moment.  Someone repeatedly posts your work all over the internet, taking credit for your hard work, blood, sweat, tears, and imagination.  It gets read by millions.  You don’t say anything.  Then one day you realize your story was made into a bestselling novel.  Unless you filed copyrights on your work, you are going to be hard put to prove that you actually wrote the original one, especially if you never bothered to confront the original plagiarizer.  And IF it did become a bestseller, who do you think the publisher is going to contact, the person claiming the work as their own, or the one who actually wrote it…the one who hasn’t bothered to say, “Hey!  I wrote that!  That’s mine!  You plagiarized!”  And if you wait until everyone knows the work in question, then the fans of the one claiming the work as his/her own is going to say that you are merely trying to hitch a free ride on someone else’s hard work.

Personally, in my honest opinion, anyone who would be okay with having their work plagiarized is not a true writer at heart.  It takes a LOT of hard work to create a literary work.  Some writers get so attached to their characters, like they have almost become real, tangible people.  The thought of anyone going through that much trouble, thought, and hard work and not be totally infuriated by the thought of having that work stolen makes absolutely no sense to me.  If you don’t care about what you have created, then what was the point?  Why did you bother to commit it to paper if you are just going to hand it over to thieves with a smile?  Writers may write to be read, but NOT if it means that someone else will get the credit.

So fellow writers, which would you prefer, and why?

Mar 15 2011

Happy Birthday, Bret!

Of course I can’t let this day go by without wishing Bret a wonderfully happy birthday!  You are my mentor, my hero, my inspiration and shining light.  Rock on, my dear, rock on!