Developmental Editing: All in a Day’s Work

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Collaborations, Creative Process, Developmental Editing, Emmanuelle De Maupassant, Gothic Fiction, On Editing, women writing sex

People often ask me how developmental editing differs from standard, or line, editing. Sometimes, I’m surprised how many writers are either unfamiliar with the term, or have little idea what it entails. Then I remember – until I took a short editing course a few years ago, which focused on different types of editing, I too had never heard of developmental editing.

It’s also called “structural editing”, but I prefer the term “developmental editing”, because the root verb “develop” describes the process more accurately.  Evaluating the structural elements a of a fiction manuscript, through examining plot, use of prologues and epilogues, chapter division and chapter order is just one aspect of a much larger process.

 

When someone asks what I do as a developmental editor, I tell them that I workshop the theatre of the story on the page.

Halfway through my first developmental editing project, I started to see similarities between how this process worked with a narrative on the page, and how I used to work with narratives for the stage as a theatre director. I’d been struck by the fact that so much of what I was doing felt  “natural” to me. Then I realized I was using much of the skill-set I’d developed over decades in my theatre training and practice.

Sometimes, when someone asks what I do as a developmental editor, I tell them that I workshop the theatre of the story on the page. Or that I work with the author to enhance and develop their voice and style. Another developmental editor might describe their work differently, but both of these theatre-based metaphors speak to me, and to what I bring to the process.

I’ve always been an analytical thinker – theatre directing helped me strengthen my ability to think visually, so it’s easy for me to translate words on a page into a three-dimensional image of a scene and characters. I can then ask myself: “What’s working? What’s missing?”

I also see similarities in the way I’d work with actors in rehearsals as a director to the way I interact with authors as an editor. However, the author is the uber-actor – the embodiment of all the characters. A balance of encouraging, coaxing, inspiring and challenging seems required to foster both processes of creativity.

Alan Rinzler, a developmental editor who’s clearly been in the business a long time, describes the role elegantly and succinctly:

“Developmental editors offer specific suggestions about the core intentions and goals of the book, the underlying premise, the story, character development, use of dialogue and sensory description, the polish, narrative voice, pacing, style, language – the craft and literary art of the book.”

Having just completed a novella manuscript a few days ago with my long-term client and dear friend, Emmanuelle de Maupassant, I’ve been noticing how the story-world is still alive in my mind and imagination. The story of Italian Sonata, with all its layers of meaning and metaphor, its panoply of characters and their individual desires, the ancient castle within which much of the action takes place, are all still vibrating in my psyche, like an image on a screen affected by slight static. It’s as if I can’t quite let go of it yet, and with that realization, came another.

Fiction writing is for most writers, a solitary task. The importance of undistracted time, and the self-imposed isolation this often necessitates, is something many writers struggle with, at least some of the time.

In the role of the developmental editor, you actually companion the writer along the way. You enter the story-world, and interact with the characters, alongside the author. As the project progresses, you might even begin to have in-jokes with the author about their character’s traits and actions.

The writer is receiving regular feedback, and support as the chapters are revised and revised again, and as the work comes together. They are no longer quite as alone in the creation, and I wonder if this would assist some types of writer personalities to complete their projects more often, or more successfully. A developmental editor would have certainly helped me as a younger writer and a social extrovert. Carving out the essential periods of solitude was once something I struggled with.

As the characters and story-world of Italian Sonata seemed reluctant to evict themselves from my psyche, I thought it might be an ideal moment to record some of the things I did, working as a developmental editor, and all in a days’ work. I’d like to thank Emmanuelle for giving me permission to “deconstruct” elements of the editing process to reveal more about the role of the developmental editor in guiding the work from draft to publication.

Before you read further, I’d like to clarify that I’m discussing the work-in-progress of someone who is an extremely talented and capable writer. Emmanuelle writes evocative, compelling prose, and presides over her story-worlds with a queenly grace. She possesses a brilliant ability for social critique and her sometime cynical humour is often mischievously afoot in her scenes, as she explores the hypocrisy inherent in the machinations of polite society. She is mistress of complex plots and even more complex characters. Her imagery is often resonant, and is, at times, capable of evoking visceral reactions in me. I particularly admire her prowess when writing in the Victorian era. She and I share a love for the Gothic fiction aesthetic and genre, so I was very excited to embark on this project with her.

For a writer, I believe working with a developmental editor is like donning a magic cloak that enhances your writerly super-powers, and minimizes or neutralizes your weaknesses. Wherever you are in your development as a writer, the right developmental editor should lift your work to the next level. Additionally, through the process of working with an editor, your writing skills should improve, so you begin your next project a stronger, more capable writer. Developmental editor Alan Rinzler calls this “constructive collaboration.”

Wherever you are in your development as a writer, the right developmental editor should lift your work to the next level.

In other words, the draft of this manuscript was already, on many levels, in good shape. Yet most writers know that overwhelming feeling of holding so many details in their head at once: it’s easy to overlook flaws and inconsistencies in the draft.

Lists are a succinct (and fun) way to capture lots of information. As the skill-set of individual developmental editors will differ, depending on their background, talents and training, I’d expect another editors’ list to have common elements, but also contain elements unique to their approach.  An editor must be able to be responsive to the needs of the individual writer, and the manuscript.  This list is not intended to be definitive: rather it’s a snapshot of elements I contributed to this manuscript, this story. As developmental editor, I:

• Re-ordered some chapters to more clearly show the passing of time and build suspense more effectively between linked sub-plots.
• Contributed some chapter titles, and re-worked others.
• Chopped up some chapters and advised upon new ordering.
• Evaluated one mini-scene in a certain chapter which seemed unlikely, conceived a plot outline that placed that scene more credibly amongst new action, and guided the author to write a new chapter that revealed more devious elements to “the villain”
• Reminded the author of plot elements that had not been carried through in a credible way.
• Advised when characters were acting “out of character” and created plot notes to help get them back on track.
• Affirmed the author’s use of metaphors to express certain themes, and helped her refine and develop them, also acting as “location scout” for places throughout the novel for these themes to be elaborated on.
• Suggested actions to better reveal complex, conflicting emotions for the character(s)
• Ensured character’s entered and exited rooms when it was important to show they had done so.
• Wrote the occasional line of dialogue when a character (and the author) was stuck for words.
• As it was a story set in Victorian times, I advised on a few elements to more clearly evoke time and period. (Although, I didn’t have too much to do here, as the author is brilliant at writing in this era).
• Read out parts of prose aloud, and corrected to enhance the beauty or clarity or rhythm of expression.
• Helped author find a different approach to sections of descriptive imagery when they “snagged” and couldn’t quite complete something.
• Picked up minor story elements that held tantalizing erotic potential, and encouraged the author to follow this through in action, over several chapters, what one character initially, only playfully, mentioned in dialogue.
• Noticed when a character was doing too much talking, with no indication of actions.
• Took the final lines of the last chapter, and re-situated them as the last lines of the Epilogue ie the final, last words.

It seems apt to end my list there.

These tasks sprung out of the fundamental task of working through the manuscript, chapter by chapter, revising each sentence and paragraph, referring at times to a plot synopsis for the bigger picture.

I hope to have captured something here of what a developmental editor actually does: most things on my list would be beyond the role of a line editor.

Your developmental editor should provide that fresh objective eye; assisting you to hone your story-world and your characters, allowing you, the writer, to relax a little, stop sweating the details, and get on with the output and completion of the prima materia.

The ultimate magnum opus should soon be in sight …

What an editor contributes is, for the most part, invisible in the final published piece of work. Perhaps that’s a sign of a skilled editor. Yet, without the input of the editor, a piece of work is likely to turn out quite differently.

Finally, for this constructive collaboration to be successful, there is one vital quality that must be present between the author and their developmental editor: trust. I feel hugely honoured and humbled by this trust, given to allow me to suggest and affect such changes to a piece of work.

Italian Sonata was officially released a few hours ago. A huge congratulations to Emmanuelle, and I’m wishing the novella every success! Head here to pick up your digital copy: https://books.pronoun.com/italian-sonata/ or to Amazon.

More information on my Editing and Writing Services

Read about my “Sample Chapter Edit Offer”

Alan Rinzler’s excellent articles (and his site) on developmental editing and more:

https://alanrinzler.com/2012/07/what-should-you-expect-from-a-developmental-editor/

https://alanrinzler.com/2011/11/when-do-you-need-an-editor/

More about Emmanuelle de Maupassant

 

Women Writing The Erotic | Emmanuelle de Maupassant

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Adrea Kore, Emmanuelle De Maupassant, Erotic Authors, Inspiration, On Writing, women writing sex

My dear friend and talented writing colleague, Emmanuelle de Maupassant, embarked upon a massive project earlier this year – a qualitative and quantitative survey of 130 authors writing and publishing within the erotic fiction genre.

Her data became the basis for a fascinating, in-depth series of articles detailing erotic fiction’s many facets, and providing insight into the collective minds behind the genre. The article series spotlights a broad range of topics: from authorial intents and motivations to public perceptions and the function of pseudonyms; literary inspirations, censorship, issues of craft and the current state of publishing and marketing erotica.

Some articles also looked at the genre from a gendered perspective; what it is to write as a man or woman within erotic fiction, and mapped possible differences of perspective and experience. You can read about the male perspective here.

Image Courtesy of Emmanuelle de Maupassant

I feel honoured to have been part of this survey, along with a number of my writing friends, colleagues, and personal inspirations within the genre. The collection of articles provide an insightful “panoramic view”. Where is the genre right now, in 2016, several years into its boom, and five years on from the publication of Fifty Shades of Grey? Regardless of one’s opinion of this book, it has certainly bought more visibility to the genre, and agruably, more publishing opportunities. Where does erotica appear to be heading?

 

In the incisive words of Remittance Girl:

“As we look to what comes next, our only true desire can be to write freely and honestly, to write what refuses to lie quietly, to write what thrills us, emotionally, intellectually and viscerally.”

I see writing erotica as a woman to be a political act, as well as a creative one, and was particularly inspired and intrigued by Emmanuelle’s three-part series on “Women Writing the Erotic”. With Emmanuelle’s kind permission, I’m re-blogging Part One here, as it delves into so many pertinent aspects, and represents an intelligent, thoughtful “round-table” of ideas and observations from many of my favourite female authors. I only wish we could all have sat down to dinner together, and had this conversation!

Links to Part Two and Three are at the bottom of the original article, and further down you’ll fnd links to all the other fascinating articles that are part of this series.

It’s over to Emmanuelle now … Read on!

In this series (within the 130 authors survey), I’ll be sharing women’s views on exploring sexuality through fiction. Which themes tug to be unravelled and explored? What motivates us, challenges u…

Source: Women Writing The Erotic | Emmanuelle de Maupassant

Chords of Desire (Erotic Fiction Excerpt)

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Adrea Kore, Cello, Creative Process, Desire, erotic dreams, erotic fiction, Female Sexuality, Fiction Excerpt, Inspiration, short story, women writing sex, Writing Process

Lights up.

There are two bodies, up here on stage.

One is of cool flesh, lavender-scented. Sleek, dark hair, parted perfectly in the centre, is pulled back into a chignon, revealing the white arc of throat, the shadow formed by the sweep of her jawline as she bends her head in concentration. Black silk accentuates the pale sheen of her skin, her dress cut wide against the shoulders to reveal her collarbones, and the stretch of her swan-like throat. Slender hips cradle a spine which draws itself, erect as a candle-flame, towards the ceiling. She has arms of alabaster, impossibly long, arms of a conjuress.  Her eyes are closed, her nostrils open. She breathes music into her, as if it were all she needed to exist. All senses are focused on this other body, gripped between her thighs; this body of violent swells and curves so different to her own.

I am smooth and gleaming, the light from the chandelier creating honeyed ripples on the surface of my flesh, flesh of maple.  I am shaped to hold secrets. I am hollow, yet fecund.  Bodies such as mine are made for the fervent embrace.  Flesh such as mine will not erode easily, even from the rituals of the most devout of lovers. 

My senses are so exquisitely honed that a flutter of fingers at my throat forges fire in my womb. I feel the strength of the thighs which clasp my hips, the tender determination of her hands upon my spine.

I cannot but yield up my music.

Is this how I was born into consciousness, the bow keening across my strings, animating them with music? My cords, through which I sing and speak, and feel. She calls me Seraphine, her burning one, her angel. No matter where we are in the world, I feel as if I am always here; caught in light, cradled in her arms, pivoting on a single point of pain like a ballerina, poised between grace and chaos.

She makes love to me each night on stage, each performance a fresh seduction.  Together, we weave sound and silence into incantations which bewitch and benumb those who listen.

Those who come to sit in the dark and watch are nearly always men, no matter if we play in the theatres of Paris, New York or Cairo.  It is when the lights are directed away from them, when lulled into the roles of mere observers, that the truth of their lives is revealed in their faces, all yearnings and disillusions.  Men with hungering eyes and lonely mouths.  Men with laden wallets and leaden hearts.  There, in the embrace of the illuminating dark, they become my performance.

I am of wood, yet something of me is woman.

 

I love my mistress. But she has a heart made of wood. She does not respond to the caresses of love. It is only music that makes her soft, Bach that brings fire to her cheeks, Schumann that coaxes a languorous curve from her lips. Only for Brahms does her body quiver, her sex yielding to the vibrations of the notes through my body, becoming moist with desire. But for what? Strangely, it is I who long for the touch of a man, I who am fashioned from the finest of maple wood.

Perhaps, one night, whilst playing me in a frenzy of passion, she transferred her heart to me.

There are stories woven into the sinews of my strings. My mistress slices her bow along them like a scalpel.

But there are stories and there are secrets. The secrets I keep deep in the hollow of my body. These she shall not have.

I love my mistress. But equally, I love desire itself, the sensual energy that dances between two beings.  And if I cannot be completely fulfilled myself, then to invoke desire in others is what I will do.

 

* 

‘A dream, like trying to remember, breaks open words for other, hidden meanings.’

Rosmarie Waldrop

This is a curated excerpt of a story that was seeded in my psyche sixteen years ago, when I had an incredibly erotic dream. I was a cello, being played to an audience of only men, in tuxedoes. I could feel the music pouring out of me as if they were physical sensations, my whole body was full of this incredible cello music, and I woke up in the middle of some intense krias (a Tantric word, describing the movement or release of orgasmic energy through the body). I had woken up my boyfriend with my sounds and writhing, and I could still hear the music in my head, as I described the dream to him. The telling of the dream had an erotic effect on him too, and we umm … didn’t sleep for quite a while.

Over the next few days, I wrote about three pages of what the dream had evoked for me. It was the beginning of my first erotica story, and the words felt as if they were pouring out like streams of melody – but I couldn’t tie together the passages. Flash forward sixteen years, with several attempts in-between. I finally finshed it recently. Interestingly, I used almost all of the original material, but found my way into the “narrative gaps” to write a more fully-formed story.

Around the writing of a story, are often other stories.

Plots are something I used to struggle with, as a younger writer. That, I believe, is what hindered me from shaping the “scenes”, moments and characters I so strongly envisaged into stories. So, I am developing my “narrative muscle” with each story I work on – and complete.

To develop a strong sense of resilience and healthy writer-ego, I believe the completion of one’s creative ideas is crucial. Half-finished ideas have a terrible tendency to haunt you.

The defintion of a chord is:

Three or more notes that combine harmoniously.

And Chords of Desire is actually told from the perspectives of three characters: three characters that sound their own unique note on the exploration of desire, three characters bound together by its power. This excerpt is just after a short prelude that begins the story, and is from the cello Seraphine’s perspective. That initial dream, the surreal fact that I was the cello, and could think and feel, always meant she was going to be a sentient character. She could be said to embody feminne desire. Inevitably, this story weaves elements of magical realism into its narrative.

I’m still searching for a home for this story – if any editor or publisher reading it feels it might resonate with their publication, or indeed if any writer knows a place that its style would be at home in, please do feel free to comment or write me here. The full version is around 4000 words. Paid publication leads only, please.

As always, this writer very much appreciates reades who take a moment to let to me know their thoughts on how the story has connected with them.

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On Pleasures of the Text : Kore Reads

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Adrea Kore, Adrienne Rich, Anais Nin, Creative Process, erotic fiction, Inspiration, My Bookshelf, On Reading, On Writing, Susan Sontag, women writing sex

Reading is a voluptuous, yet defiant act …

Reading is a voluptuous, yet defiant act, particularly in our increasingly  time-poor society.  Pages of a book can erect a little wall between yourself and everyday demands, whispering “later” to here-and-now concerns, and “yes” to deep time with the self. It’s a reason for lolling on your favourite couch with a pot of tea and home-made chocolate cake, or finding a mini-oasis of park green under the dappled shade of a tree.

I began this piece of writing with the intention of listing something like my ten most favourite works of erotica and stood, contemplating my bookshelf for inspiration. Yes, I have a real one, not a Virtual / Kindle one – to prove it there’s a photo further into the article.)

My bookshelf is an old-fashioned honeyed-wood thing of solidity that my father gave me one Christmas many years ago; five shelves high which means I have to stretch a little to reach the top shelf, and I like that feeling – of reaching for a treasured book. It makes me think of the feeling of yearning I get when I’m not reading; a yearning to sink in to the pages of a book and lose myself in story, and also the mental reach for the right word or image that one makes as a writer.

I keep my classics on the top shelf, just as a bartender will keep his top-notch spirits and liqueurs, gleaming and beckoning, on the uppermost shelf.  There, Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment sits next to D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers. Bronte’s Jane Eyre leans, shivering a little, against Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination. This shelf is bolstered by Shakespeare’s Collected Works at one end and a weighty volume of Oscar Wilde’s prolific and genre-spanning writing at the other.

 Language and ideas, once encountered, live inside you, and can effect changes, both subtle and catalytic.

Devouring and studying these classics in different ways during my childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, studying literature at University and hurling myself headlong into several semesters of Shakespeare and Ancient Greek Theatre (text and performance) through my theatre degree gave me a deep appreciation for the almost-limitless fecundity of language. As importantly, it also cultivated an absence of fear of language. Wrestling with Grecian choric text, conquering the vocal delivery of iambic pentameters in Shakespeare’s work, finding contemporary sense in obscure medieval words, and unravelling complex metaphors to reveal depth, beauty and universal truths in works conceived of many centuries ago; these interactions with language absolved me of any hesitancy I had in seeking out any author’s ideas I felt curious about, and opened me to the power and potency of the written word. The ideas we consume contribute to our growth or our atrophy. Language and ideas, once encountered, live inside you, and can effect changes, both subtle and catalytic.

Words endure. And the feelings they conjure up in the body can endure too, leaving traces, imprints in the cells, the memory.

You can tell a lot about a person by looking at the books on their bookshelf.

Can you keep a secret? This top shelf is now no longer my favourite shelf. These kinds of texts have had their way with me; they’ve done their work.  These … relationships I’ve had with texts such as these now underscore my new handful of literary touchstones. I’d like to introduce to you my new favourites – ones that have specifically  coaxed me along a path of writing. Initially, some of these works allowed me to notice my love for sensual, voluptuous prose and searing imagery, simultaneously realising what I most felt drawn to reading was the feminine experience of the world, and also those stories of  growth, transformation or dislocation, felt through and mediated by the body.

These were the things that I began to write about: Love and longing. Loss. Translating the physical arts I most loved into words: my experiences of dancing and life-modelling. Then, more arduously, carving out narratives of sexual trauma. Death. Then, the sensual pleasures. Sex.

Light, dark, light, dark. Always this dance, and writing has helped me embrace the totality in the supposed contradictions.

These are a few of my favourite things …

I realised it’s not been only my reading of erotica that has fuelled my desire to write erotica. As importantly, it’s been my reading of the following: non-fiction feminist texts and essays, strong, powerfully imaginative contemporary women fiction writers, play-texts written by female playwrights, and women’s short stories, in addition to a few core works of erotica read at crucial moments in my life journey. Then, throw in a few texts by male authors, and that would more aptly represent  those voices that resonate and refract in my own writing. Sontag again captures my thoughts on the relationship between what one reads and how one writes:

“Reading usually precedes writing. And the impulse to write is almost always fired by writing.”

I have said before that reading Anais Nin’s Delta of Venus gave me the spark to write about desire, and almost a decade later re-discovering Jeanette Winterson’s sensual, searing prose gave me the permission. Something about Winterson’s work resonated with the language burning away inside me, threatening a slow smouldering consumption of my journal pages if I didn’t give my ideas some more space and light. And more eyes and ears. Susan Sontag writes in an essay called Writing as Reading that our writing too, is part of our reading; that ” to write is to practice, with particular attentiveness, the art of reading.”

This portion of my shelf houses a seemingly arbitrary, but indelibly meaningful personal version of the Dewey decimal system. My obsession with creative process is revealed by my collection of books on the craft of writing and creative process. After all, “writing is finally, a series of permissions you give yourself to be expressive in certain ways” (Sontag).

Honourable mention goes to Ray Bradbury’s (one of my lifelong revered writers, so he had to get a mention in this article somehow)  Zen in the art of Writing and Writing as a Way of Healing by Louise DeSalvo. (Want to know how to go about writing difficult, personal experiences of trauma and loss so you can re-frame your experience and let words heal the wounds? This is the book)

Then there are my feminist theory texts such as Naomi Wolf’s Vagina.  There are more of those off-stage left, but I wanted a closer shot where you could also see some of the titles on the spine. There are two anthologies in which my own stories are published  (Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 13, A Story-telling of Ravens) nestled next to works that inspired me to start writing erotica. There’s an incredible feminist re-imagining of Medea’s story by German author Christa Wolf. Margaret Atwood’s chillingly feminist work of speculative fiction The Handmaid’s Tale.

Missing in action is Tobsha Learner’s witty and sensual Quiver,  also part of my chain of cause-and-effect of becoming an erotica writer.  I fear this one went the way of an ex, never to return, though her other anthology Tremble  is present. Also, I noticed with dismay I have no personally owned volumes of Angela Carter’s stories. That I shall have to remedy. There are more obscure erotic works such as Alina Reye’s Lucie’s Long Voyage and a comprehensive, gently academic and exhaustive collection of women’s writing called Erotica: An Anthology of Women’s Writing, edited by Margaret Reynolds. This one almost made it to my list, but it’s been more a reference book and an introduction to some of my favourite writer’s work, rather than one I’ve read cover to cover. This snapshot contains a good number of what I’d call my “Kore Reads”, but not quite all of them.

So here, in the order my subconscious tumbled them onto the page, is my bakers’ dozen (or my witches’ coven) of beloved  texts of erotic inspiration. Thirteen is a powerful number with a contentious and misunderstood history, so perhaps that’s appropriate for a tracing of the articulation of female desire. Over time, I’ll add descriptions or reviews.  If my writing resonates with you in any way as the reader, I hope you’ll feel intrigued to investigate a few of them. Or maybe some of these are your favourites.

• Delta of Venus – Anais Nin

• Written on the Body – Jeanette Winterson

• Lighthouse Keeping – Jeanette Winterson

• The Last Magician – Janette Turner-Hospital

• Perfume –Patrick Suskind

• Medea – Christa Wolf

• On Lies, Secrets and Silences: Selected Prose 1966 – 1978 – Adrienne Rich

• Women who Run with the Wolves – Clarissa Pinkola Estes

• The Bloody Chamber – Angela Carter

• Quiver – Tobsha Learner

• What I have Written – John A Scott

• Vinegar Tom – Caryl Churchill

• A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments – Roland Barthes
  

These are a few of my favourite things. These works and their themes, language, ideas, imagery now live inside me. These are the words that fire my own.

“Reading usually precedes writing. And the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading.  Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer. And long after you’ve become a writer, reading books others write – and rereading the beloved books of the past – constitutes an irresistible distraction from writing. Distraction.  Consolation.  Torment.  And yes, inspiration.”

~ Susan Sontag

*If you’d like references or more information about any of the books I’ve mentioned, dear reader, leave a Comment below or send me a personal message HERE.

Talk to me. I’m listening…

Sexual Hauntings: Touching Mystery through Writing Erotica

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Adrea Kore, archetypes, author intent, erotic fiction, erotica, Female Ejaculation, Female Sexuality, Luce Irigaray, multiple orgasms, On Writing, Sexual Mysteries, sexual relating, sexuality, Tantra, women writing sex

Away with my lover last weekend, I experienced something sublimely inexplicable, yet familiar, during foreplay. An explosion of silver sparks danced across the inside of my closed eyelids as we kissed deeply. These sparks are always accompanied by intense pleasure, and a feeling of closeness to my partner. Yet they also feel magical, and remind me of the idea in quantum physics (and in the Moby song “Stars”) that we humans are made of the stuff of stars, that we too can shimmer and gleam.

In a recent post on what makes a piece of fiction erotica, I touched on authorial intent, and I want to delve into this from another perspective here. The issue of intent for the writer is perhaps continuously evolving, shifting as one’s writing evolves. Intent is a drive, a strong motivation to write about certain subjects in certain ways, in the hope of certain outcomes. I believe intent is closely linked in with desire, but also our core values as experiencing, exploring beings.

One of my core beliefs is that we are more than just bodies; we are also energy, soul and spirit. So, when we engage in sex, we aren’t merely bodies grinding against one another. We cannot but share and merge our energy. Tantra is a practice and philosophy that reflects my beliefs, and I’ve been exploring it, both practically and theoretically, for almost two decades now. Tantra is a Sanskrit word that means “weaving” and aptly,  it weaves a spiritual philosophy developed over centuries with sexual and meditative practices. I’m drawn to it it also as a framework that acknowledges, supports and accepts the concept of a multi-orgasmic woman. And men, for that matter. Tantra was a world I felt confidently at home in. I was multi-orgasmic before I was Tantric, but Tantric practices such as breathing and visualization, as well as a more precise anatomical knowledge have definitely given me tools to strengthen my ecstatic experiences.

The shadow sides of our sexual psyches also intrigues me, and I see sex as a way of expressing different aspects of ourselves. Classical Tantra doesn’t encompass this side of our sexuality, but archetypal theories do. We can think of these other aspects of ourselves, like Jung did, as archetypes: the Vixen, the Warlock, the Witch, the Warrior, Venus, Pan. Through sex, we can put aside our everyday selves, and delve into other aspects of the psyche; we can allow them to come out and play.

… writing erotica is my own personal creative liminal zone, the point where sex merges into language, language into sex; two of my enduring fascinations.

Additionally, I take delight in the theatrical elements of sex; creating mood and atmosphere, using elements of costume and role play. Ahh, you mean kink, some of you will say, and yes of course many kink practices borrow from theatre. But kink is a loaded word, and one can play with all of these elements (even being tied up) without identifying as ‘kinky’. I did these things for a long, long time before I knew there were such concepts as kink or BDSM. I am inherently theatrical, creative and sensorily curious. I like to think of creative ways to enhance sensation. So these things drove me to dress up, put blindfolds on my partners, ice their nipples, tie them to tables. And to desire similar things done to me.

About five years ago, I began a Tantra teaching course. I didn’t complete it for lots of reasons, some of them, sadly, traumatic ones. But what I also realised is Tantra doesn’t encompass all of who I am sexually, nor how I want to explore sex. Around that time, I’d also written, performed and had my first erotica piece published. Why did I become an erotica writer, and not a sexuality educator?  Although the desire to run workshops on writing sex and exploring fantasy is definitely a future possibility, I can’t fully answer this question at present. Except to say that I need to be creative, and writing erotica is my own personal creative liminal zone, the point where sex merges into language, language into sex; two of my enduring fascinations.

I am (benevolently) haunted by certain intense, ecstatic, mysterious moments and discoveries on the map of my sexual experiences. More intriguingly,  it is those moments and sensations that seem beyond language, or logical explanation (or both) that haunt me; I am pulled back to the page time and time again, to the challenge of translating these most visceral, sometimes ethereal sensations into words and imagery. I write erotica partially in order to record these elements, but also to revel in the mystery.

In writing this list, I’m not trying to validate these moments as logical, nor am I trying or explain them. I’m simply naming them as a list of experiential “touchstones” that keep me connected to the mystery of sexuality, and keep me writing about sex. In fact, part of their personal portent for me, is that I don’t understand some of the experiences I’ve had intellectually. My body understands them. My senses felt their absolute veracity. It’s a searing contradicition, this knowing and not-knowing, and writing erotic fiction gives me a space to  both engage with and contemplate this paradox. They are  not puzzles I need to solve, rather they are mysteries I want to contemplate. Perhaps that’s also why I didn’t take the sexuality educator path.

Earthing Eros: The Makings of Erotica (II)

Tags

Adrea Kore, erotic fiction, erotic language, erotica, Female Sexuality, non-consensual sexual fantasies, On Writing, reading as pleasure, sapio-sexual, women writing sex, writing sex scenes

The Erotics of Intent

Erotica, with its more complex focus on sexuality, clearly offers more scope for interpretation and response in the individual reader. Speaking for a moment as a reader of erotica, I come primarily to the erotic text to be aroused, and to be shown something I resonate with about sexuality, desire and relating. As a voracious life-long lover of literature, I also seek out erotica that is, as importantly, well-crafted storytelling.  Erotica that fulfils these aspects for me as a reader is erotica I will most likely return to, reflect upon, purchase a hard copy to put on my bookshelf (as an unapologetic bibliophile), and recommend to others.

Additionally, as a sapio-sexual, I have a relentless curiosity about the broader spectrum of sexual desire and its manifestations. So even if a story doesn’t get me wet, but shows me a narrative of sexuality that challenges my thoughts about sex, reveals something new to me, affects me strongly in some way, and is also a story well-told –  I’m satisfied – though perhaps on a slightly less visceral level.

I believe an audience comes to any art form wanting to be shown the known in the unknown, or the unknown in the known. Even if this desire is in the subconscious, even if the audience is only partially aware of this desire, it is present. Erotica as a fiction genre plays constantly on this tension between the known and the unknown, between concealing and revealing.

As writers of erotica, I think the most fundamental intent we can all agree on is that we are exploring sexuality either to arouse and engage ourselves, our readers, or ideally both.

To engage and arouse.

As intents, they can be mutually compatible or exclusive. This is what I meant in the last post when I said that in erotica, characters don’t always have to enjoy sex. From the writerly perspective, we are freed from those limiting constraints placed upon romance. We can sketch the sexual scene in chiaroscuro; in all its permutations of light and dark. Yes. I did just avoid the word “shades”. We can sketch a scene to explore disparity in sexual desire, or depression, or need without affection.

In its strategies of arousal, as I mentioned in terms of focus, erotica employs a complexity of language that is specialised in terms of both its precision and its poetic elements. Descriptions of sexual encounters must rest (however heavily or lightly) on a framework of anatomically precise geography; it must provide that most basic of maps of what is going where for the reader, in order for them to orient themselves. The bare “mechanics”, as Anais Nin calls them, must be present in order for the reader to be receptive to the more abstract levels of sexual experience; to convey emotion, sensation, transcendent states. And through the history of human self-expression, when attempting to express abstract concepts such as spirituality or love, writers have turned to poetry. Think Tennyson, Shakespeare, Dickinson, Rumi.

Erotica asks complex questions about consent, personal limits and relationships. And it doesn’t just ask these questions of the characters. It asks them of the reader, also.

I don’t mean that every time there’s a sex scene, prose writers should suddenly break into lyrical verse form. I do mean that prose is more than capable of embodying poetic elements, however.

Shifting language into the poetic realm allows us to convey more effectively that which is “beyond language”; the sublime, the transcendent, the profane. Sex can be all of these things.  It’s why I think “poetic” elements such as rhythm, alliteration, repetition and onomatopoeia are so powerful in writing about sex; they circumvent the cerebral, they grunt and slither their way into our limbic brains, our cunts and cocks. Sex is rhythmic, percussive, slippery, so when language describing sex embodies this, it has the power to arouse and put the reader “inside the skin” of the protagonists.

“Keeping my motions to the rhythm of a hypnotic pendulum, I take one hand and guide his bound wrists to caress my breasts, while my other hand clasps the front of his throat. I want to make him ache for each breath.

I hook my fingers into the leather binding his wrists, allowing me traction to lean back, the shift of balance weighting down through my spine, deep into my sex. A feline strength surges through me, as I tighten my grasp on these three offerings of surrender – wrists, cock, throat. Harnessing the totality of his hardness inside me. Breathing the masculine force of him up through my centre as I contract around him. Drawing him inwards, upwards, until his supple wand is bruising the petals of that sweet carnal flower blooming  inside my womb; its tendrils seeming to generate downwards from the underside of my navel, its centre steeped in waiting nectar.”

~ Wet Satin Plaything (WIP) – Adrea Kore 2013

It’s not the only effective way of writing sex, but it’s the one I resonate with most, as both a reader and a writer, when poetic elements of language are employed with care. Referring back to the forum for erotica authors I’m part of, I’m going to quote Remittance Girl in a discussion on a related topic: ” language, like cunts, gets slippery and unmanageable”. I’d add, that it’s the kind of ‘slippery’ certain readers want to engage with , and harnessing the poetics of erotic language as traction allows us to slide into that realm; to find the unknown in the known.

So, in engaging the reader, erotica seeks to arouse. But it may also confront. Provoke. And subvert. Even without arousal, these intents are valuable and powerful.

Erotica writes into those areas of the human sexual psyche and behaviour that some other genres gloss over or shy away from. Erotica reveals the links between our inner psychological desires, motivations and our sexual actions. It can also bring into the light the contradictions between our inner sexual desires and our outward behaviour. What do we settle for? What do we secretly long for, and to attain that, what lengths would we go to?

“My unspoken fantasy. Hidden in the crevices of my unconscious. But somehow, you have found me out.

Follow me like a stranger.

Find me when I least expect you to.

Fuck me with the hard-edged flint of your desire.

Fear and desire. Desire and fear. Mysteriously entwined threads that weave this heightened electricity through my body. My orgasms, white-hot flashes of neon luminescence. Splitting through the dark unknown of alleyway shadows.”

~ from Hand of A Stranger – Adrea Kore 2013

(published on forthegirls.com 2013) 

Erotica asks complex questions about consent, personal limits and relationships. And it doesn’t just ask these questions of the characters. It asks them of the reader, also.

This is why I am drawn to writing in the erotic genre. It’s why I feel proud of my craft. Sexuality is such a vital part of the map of the human psyche. Sexuality reveals so much of ourselves.

So next time the subject of erotica comes up, and someone glibly refers to “that book” as if it’s the beginning and the end of erotica, declaiming its awful prose and thereby somehow dismissing an entire literary genre through sheer ignorance, I hope that you, the discerning reader of this article, can offer something more intelligent in the defence of erotica as a literary tradition, a genre and an art form. I hope you might cite this article or some examples of well-crafted, intelligent, provocative erotica stories.

 Poetic elements such as rhythm, alliteration, repetition and onomatopoeia are so powerful in writing about sex; they circumvent the cerebral, they grunt and slither their way into our limbic brains, our cunts and cocks. Sex is rhythmic, percussive, slippery, so when language describing sex embodies this …

Any culture of ideas is only changed in increments. You and I can both be a part of that.

 

“The sensual is not delivered superficially for its titillation; it is delved into for what it reveals about the human condition.”

~ Nigel Krauth

 

Story of O – Writing the Orgasm in Erotica -2

Tags

Adrea Kore, conscious sexuality, erotica, ERWA, Female Sexuality, My Secret Garden, sexual fantasies, shame-free sexuality, women writing sex

“I am gone in a liquid cascade; my edges

dissolved in the ecstasy

that you catch in your palm

Cupped to your mouth, then mine

The taste sweet, clear, as lychee nectar”

(Excerpt – Threshold – Adrea Kore 2013)

Welcome to Part 2 of ‘Writing the Orgasm’, which I guess could also be subtitled “Why I Write Erotica”. I’m aware as I write this, that although writers often have underlying reasons in common for writing what they do, their reasons may also be very different. For some erotica writers, it may be escapism. Some writers may laugh at my taking sexuality so seriously. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t explore the playful aspects of sex in my writing. Sex is an aspect of human creativity and self-expression – the playful is just as important as the intense or the serious.

In my erotica writing, I reach for a tryst between the truth of sensation and the tease of imagination. I’m engaged in translating the sensations of sex into imagery, in a way which will transmute back though the body of the reader into arousal. In this way, erotica is a kind of sex.

So, what are other reasons I feel called to write what I do?

For centuries, it is mostly male authors have spoken for the female sexual experience in literature. Our bodies have been filtered through male eyes, male observations. This language does not emerge from inside the female body, but outside it. How do women articulate desire for themselves? How does it differ from how men write us sexually? I agree that sometimes the difference isn’t discernible. Nin wrote about sex admirably well from the male perspective. Some of my contemporaries like author Ronnie Strong have impressed me their depiction of their female characters’ experiences and thoughts around sex.

Story of ‘O’: Writing the Orgasm in Erotica – 1

Tags

Adrea Kore, Anais Nin, conscious sexuality, erotica, Female Orgasm, multiple orgasms, Orgasm, sexual fantasies, Tantra, women writing sex

“His topography fits my geography. The wicked curve upwards kisses that place, that place which sends me into sensory whirlpools of delirious intensity, there on the underside of my navel.

Sure now that my movements are making the most of him, I prop my body up on several pillows, opening my legs so I can see myself reflected in the mirror at the foot of the bed… I guide him in and out, giving him more daringly to that hungry place inside me, building the intensity of sensations until each dive inwards is met with an outward rush of pleasure.”

(Excerpt – Salad Days © Adrea Kore 2013. 

Published in Little Raven II and A Storytelling of Ravens) 

Orgasms. As a beginning erotica writer, it’s inevitable that at some point you encounter this challenge. You have to describe characters having orgasms. Then as you write more stories, and inevitably more sex scenes, you have to find more ways of describing them – different tones and shades to suit the context, mood, character psychology, and perhaps even the sub-genre of your erotic scene. (Is it paranormal, sci-fi or BDSM erotica, for example?) Different genres may suggest different approaches to description, different language, and even a different emphasis of the experience.

As importantly, you try to write in ways that you hope will arouse the reader.

And all of this, whilst trying to side-step cliché, purple prose or implausibility. Any of these elements risk taking a reader out of the story, and can dampen the intended effect of the more explicit parts of your story.

“It seems to me” … ~ Sappho

Tags

erotic arts, erotic poetry, Female Sexuality, Sappho, women writing sex

All the way from 7th Century BC, meet Sappho, an ancient Greek lyric poetess, residing for much of her life on the island of Lesbos, which was a cultural centre at the time. The daughter of a wealthy aristocrat, Sappho led an eventful

http://www.diariodecultura.com.ar/cm/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/safo.jpg

life, which included both fame and infamy. She was exiled to Sicily for a time, probably for political activities, where she was treated as an honourable guest and had a statue erected in her name. She was later hailed by the Alexandrians, who listed her as one of nine significant lyric poets.  Although not the case with the poem featured here, the beloved subject of much of her poetry was women.

It seems to me (to borrow a phrase) that the Ancient Greeks knew a lot about the erotic life. They valued beauty in architecture, and the arts held a central place in Grecian cultural life, with tragic and comic theatre festivals held over several days. They were a sexually liberal culture too, with an acceptance of homo-eroticism and same-sex love. Then there was their love of wine and feasting! Two schools of thought that resolved around pleasure as a central focus had both philosophers and strong followings in Ancient Greece – Epicureanism and Hedonism. I could certainly entertain living in those times – at least if I was born into the wealthy classes!

Yield – by Adrea Kore

Tags

Adrea Kore, erotic poetry, Female Sexuality, sexuality, women writing sex, Writing Sex

Here again, and, for the first time,

This aeons-old meeting-place

You and I make cross-roads of our arms

and our wanting speaks within

This exquisite tension

between permission and resistance

Poised, in the flesh of your instinctive seeking

Gustav Klimt – “The Kiss”

and my seeming witholding…

 

 

I await the secret knock

the whispered invocation

Scored, taut, across

the skin of you

To be sensed, like Braille,

blind-seeing, beyond where I resist

The night, for a moment, pauses;

We hold night in our mouths

 

 

As the weight of you,

the waiting of you, falls

into the arms of my sex

I yield, whilst somehow, still,

you are held by me;

I pour away,

an endless avalanche

of release.

 

 

©  Adrea Kore 2012

(Not to be reproduced or reprinted,

 in part or in whole, without permission of the author

 

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