Secret Christie on Reading a Book

[KeithD]

[Mr. Baldock] “How do you read a book? Begin at the beginning and go right through?”

[Laura] “Yes. Don’t you?”

“No,” said Mr. Baldock. “I take a look at the start, get some idea of what It’s all about, then I go on to the end and see where the fellow has got to, and what he’s been trying to prove. And then, then I go back and see how he’s got there and what’s made him land up where he did. Much more interesting.”

Laura looked interested but disapproving.

“I don’t think that’s the way the author meant his book to be read,” she said.

“Of course he didn’t.”

“I think you should read the book the way the author meant.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Baldock. “But you’re forgetting the party of the second part, as the blasted lawyers put it. There’s the reader. The reader’s got his rights, too. The author writes his book the way he likes. Has it all his own way. Messes up the punctuation and fools around with the sense any way he pleases. And the reader reads the book the way he wants to read it, and the author can’t stop him.”

Mary Westmacott (Agatha Christie), The Burden

 

[AG31]

[Mr. Baldock] “How do you read a book? Begin at the beginning and go right through?”

[Laura] “Yes. Don’t you?”

“No,” said Mr. Baldock. “I take a look at the start, get some idea of what It’s all about, then I go on to the end and see where the fellow has got to, and what he’s been trying to prove. And then, then I go back and see how he’s got there and what’s made him land up where he did. Much more interesting.”

Laura looked interested but disapproving.

“I don’t think that’s the way the author meant his book to be read,” she said.

“Of course he didn’t.”

“I think you should read the book the way the author meant.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Baldock. “But you’re forgetting the party of the second part, as the blasted lawyers put it. There’s the reader. The reader’s got his rights, too. The author writes his book the way he likes. Has it all his own way. Messes up the punctuation and fools around with the sense any way he pleases. And the reader reads the book the way he wants to read it, and the author can’t stop him.”

Mary Westmacott (Agatha Christie), The Burden

How do you decide what to post on your blog and what to post on Lit?

 

[KeithD]

How do you decide what to post on your blog and what to post on Lit?

I don't believe in doing blogs. So, "my" blog is maintained by my publisher, who, as I told him would be the case, isn't really keeping up with it. I provided twenty-four essays on this and that relating to publishing of my works, so the blog could have a fresh essay every month. As far as I know, most of them just sit there unpublished. So, the short answer is, although having provided two years of monthly content, I don't participate in decisions about the blog--or the publisher's Web site, for that matter.

Sort of a pity, because I think the essays are pretty meaty on content related to my GM erotica writing. Posting them here in some form would, of course, be push vanity, though. My signature line can lead Lit. users to the blog, where some of the material is given. Folks could determine for themselves how useful/interesting the essays and promos are. There just a lot of them that haven't been published yet. Topics applicable here are included, for instance a discussion on the fundamentals, as I see it, of coauthoring. Sabb and I have a pretty good track record of coauthoring GM stories here under the Shabbu account, including a "first" contest win a couple of years ago.

As far as what to post where, I post stories here (but also have "how tos" posted, mostly under the sr71plt account). The blog is more backgrounders behind the stories and techniques of writing and themes/motifs commonly used (and why). The how-to essays I have posted to Lit. are specific to publishing on Lit. The essays on the blog are more general on writing.

 

[KeithD]

How do you decide what to post on your blog and what to post on Lit?

Here, for instance, is an essay that's representative of what is posted to my blog. I think this one responds to frequent thread questions posted on the AH--responding directly from my own specific experience/views. Often my discussions will point to where they can find relevant books of mine (it's a market blog, so the references are to marketed works, but their content eventually gets published to Lit. and other story sites). I do get questions asking for recommendations of particular theme stories of mine (got one from you just yesterday), which I find hard to respond to with some 1,500 stories posted here. In some cases, the blog entries pull this thematic material together.
-------
What words and phrases a reader will find arousing (or off-putting, arousal wise) can’t be determined by the writer and are widely divergent across the reader spectrum, but I, as a writer, certainly find some words and phrases more arousing than others, and I can use them appropriately for my own pleasure, while I write. In choosing words, I have character personality and character-as-narrator issues to consider in writing dialogue and narration, and I also have what I use in straight-from-me narration prose. I do have some turn-on and turn-off words and expressions.

Basically, I write straightforward “manly” characters, so the words I use for sexual terms are usually blunt. In my own voice and in those of most of my characters, a cock will be a “cock” or a “shaft” and characters will “fuck” or “screw.” If I have used these words too often, I might slip in a “rod” and a “coupled.” For effect, I might use “impaled.” My characters don’t usually “make love” and they never “make whoopie.” They fuck. I’ll use “dick” only in the dialogue of an immature or not too bright character and “penis” would be for the rare limp-wristed character. (I don’t write many limp-wrested characters, however. Most of my submissives are all-American and most of my dominants are macho.)

In my bisexual stories, a woman would have a “cunt” and a “clit.” Words such as “pussy” or “love button” would only appear in the dialogue of a particularly bubble-headed character, and I wouldn’t be thinking arousing thoughts as I wrote that.

There are some words or terms that would signal to the reader that I’m in high heat when I write. One of my absolute favorite arousing words is “mounted.” I don’t read this word being used in the writing of others as I write it. When a character is “mounted,” he is being controlled; he will be penetrated and fucked.

The usual progression in connecting up in sex would be “getting in position,” moving to “penetration,” and moving on to “pumping and release.”

I often—when I’m really into the scene, will add a step. After one of my characters gets into position, he sometimes mounts his partner before penetrating. When I write this, I’m getting the primordial, animalistic image most evident in the doggie position. It’s the point where the dominate partner is completely in control of the submissive, usually with the submissive surrendering, and inevitably moving into penetrative sex. The dominant man has the submissive’s hips trapped between his thighs. He is the master. Whether or not this word arouses the reader, it arouses me when I’m writing the scene.

“Stretched” is a turn-on word for me, as are “rippling” or “undulating” channel muscles. Such words don’t rely on science. To me, erotica is fantasy arousal, and these words do that for me. In the same vein, and because I hear it talked of as arousing, I will include mentions of a small-sized character as having “narrow hips.” This is a signal of the partner pursuing him being aroused by the possibility of having a tight channel to “stretch,” as hinted by a narrow-hipped build. Not scientific again, but arousal is three-quarters mental fantasy.

Quite often my black characters are “big black bulls,” hung like bulls and approaching sex like bulls. Whether or not that is a stereotype, false stereotype, or not politically correct, it is a turn-on term for me (and brings back some scintillating memories), so I include it in my writing and it turns me on as I am composing. I never met a black man who objected to be considered in this way as a sex partner.

When sex is really, really good for me—in having it, or writing it—I write of a submissive being touched and worked “in his soft core,” depicting a totally satisfying fuck.

When I employ a strikingly crude sex word in decidedly higher-level prose, it usually is to arrest the attention of the reader and signal that the intensity of the encounter is being heightened a couple of notches and/or that the characters are losing control in the heat of the moment.

This is just a somewhat scattered mention of examples of words and phrases that turn a writer—in this case, me—on, in the writing process—and the writer being turned on in the creation of stories is the first necessary step to producing successful erotica.

 

[AG31]

Fascinating! Thanks!

a woman would have a “cunt” and a “clit.” Words such as “pussy” or “love button” would only appear in the dialogue of a particularly bubble-headed character, and I wouldn’t be thinking arousing thoughts as I wrote that.

Hear, hear!!

 

[IrisAlthea]

[Mr. Baldock] “How do you read a book? Begin at the beginning and go right through?”

[Laura] “Yes. Don’t you?”

“No,” said Mr. Baldock. “I take a look at the start, get some idea of what It’s all about, then I go on to the end and see where the fellow has got to, and what he’s been trying to prove. And then, then I go back and see how he’s got there and what’s made him land up where he did. Much more interesting.”

Laura looked interested but disapproving.

“I don’t think that’s the way the author meant his book to be read,” she said.

“Of course he didn’t.”

“I think you should read the book the way the author meant.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Baldock. “But you’re forgetting the party of the second part, as the blasted lawyers put it. There’s the reader. The reader’s got his rights, too. The author writes his book the way he likes. Has it all his own way. Messes up the punctuation and fools around with the sense any way he pleases. And the reader reads the book the way he wants to read it, and the author can’t stop him.”

Mary Westmacott (Agatha Christie), The Burden

I loved that book so much, I’m afraid to read it again.
Now I feel like doing it anyway.

 

[KeithD]

I loved that book so much, I’m afraid to read it again.
Now I feel like doing it anyway.

I actually was disappointed with the Mary Westmacott (the inner Agatha Christie) books. I was introduced to the six books by a TV show on Christie, in which the narrator said the Westmacott books more closely showed how Christie clicked than her true-name books did. I read all six, one after the other, in chrono order. I didn't find they revealed much of anything about Christie other than her devastation from her first husband deserting her for another woman--which anyone who followed Christie already knew was central to her life. That did come up over and over again in the Westmacott books. I didn't know how the first one got published at all. It was full of dropped threads and the writing was pretty naive. I guess the publisher knew it was Christie.

But now I've read them. I don't remember having gotten a story inspiration from any of them--which I often do from what I'm reading at the moment (my current book on Tennessee Williams' background has already given me a finished story). But maybe I have or will. My muse does occasionally mull the scenario of dumping a great setup for something "can't help it" less in a GM version.

 

[IrisAlthea]

I was introduced to the six books by a TV show on Christie, in which the narrator said the Westmacott books more closely showed how Christie clicked than her true-name books did. I read all six, one after the other, in chrono order.

I’ve only read that one, as a teenager because I found it with the other Christie books at home.
It hit home very well at that age, being the oldest child…

I don’t know for sure what they meant in the show you saw, but The Burden does have a lot of Christie’s philosophy as I remember it. It’s the thoughts about guilt and redemption and good and evil that do come across in her other books at times too at times.

I still remember the following quote, mumble mumble decades later, well enough to go looking for it:

Llewellyn: “You must face it, Laura, you can’t make amends.”

She stood motionless for a moment, like one stricken…

Laura: “You don’t understand. I’ve got to pay. For what I’ve done. Everyone has to pay.”

Llewellyn: “How obsessed you are with the thought of payment.”

Laura reiterated: “Everyone has to pay.”

Llewellyn: “Yes, I grant you that. But don’t you see, my dearest child – “ He hesitated before this last bitter truth that she had to know. “For what you did, someone has already paid. Shirley paid.”

She looked at him in sudden horror.

Laura: “Shirley paid – for what I did?”

He nodded.

Llewellyn: “Yes, I’m afraid you’ve got to live with that. Shirley paid. And Shirley is dead, and the debt is cancelled. You have got to go forward, Laura. You have got, not to forget the past, but to keep it where it belongs, in your memory, but not in your daily life. You have got to accept not punishment but happiness. Yes, my dear, happiness. You have got to stop giving and learn to take. God deals strangely with us – He is giving you, so I fully believe, happiness and love.

Accept them in humility.”

I didn't know how the first one got published at all. It was full of dropped threads and the writing was pretty naive. I guess the publisher knew it was Christie.

I do think it was known.
But even when Christie is distracted, her ideas and characters do tend to catch your interest.

And also, it’s romance.
The standards are different.