Gored by the Horns of a Dilemma –

Last night, when I pushed back from my latest manuscript in progress, I left my character dangling, somehow incomplete.  She’s not as well developed as she could be and I’m three quarters of the way through.  I need to express her more fully, as a real person.  Plus, there’s a couple other thorny issues kicking around from reviewer/reader comments on earlier works in the mystery series.

So then:

How do I bring her to life, make her real, and not simply another woman from a mostly male point of view?

How do I address reader requests for more sex scenes?

Not that I care all that much.  In my opinion, sex in contemporary literature has been done to death and beyond.  Witness Zombie Erotica on Google and you get the picture pretty damn quick.  Requests for more sex would be easy enough to ignore.  It is, after all, a paranormal mystery.  And while it is “R” rated, it’s not Erotica by any stretch of the imagination.  It almost begs the question, why?  Simple.  If a mystery writer can’t trust his readers, who can he trust?

Urges From the Ether –

It came to me early this morning in that magical state between asleep and awake.  Not your typical morning stiffy, mind you.  No.  An idea to liven her up and give her depth all at once.  And if I do it right (and I CAN do it right, believe me) it’ll insert steamy sex without the gratuitousness.  Not that masturbation is all that exciting, but at least I’ll be keeping it real.

Do I REALLY want to do this?

What seemed like a potential breakthrough at 5:35 a.m. seems more like a hackneyed attempt to write my way out of a character-building cul-de-sac in the harsh light of day.  But then again, why the hell not?  It could be fun.

Here’s what it comes down to.  I want to know your thoughts on the matter.

Does she masturbate, or doesn’t she?  I’ll await your answer with bated breath.

Okay.  Enough already.  No more double entendre or innuendo.  It’s almost embarrassing, (not really.)

 

As always, my blatant self-promotion as a mystery writer follows:

The tentative release date for Flight of the Tarantula Hawk is Halloween.

In the meantime, the book trailer for Dark Side of Sunset Pointe is up on YouTube.  Take a look, let me know what you think.

Dark Side of Sunset Pointe – A Lance Underphal Mystery is available in e-book & paperback on Amazon.

For more on Michael Allan Scott and my work, go to michaelallanscott.com

 

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