Skeletal Writings

First of all, I was Tweeting about this earlier today, but I realized I had so much to say I wanted to do a longer version here.  So if by chance anyone on here follows me on Twitter, this might seem familiar.  Now that that is out of the way...

This is the link that spawned said rant: http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/comments/physical-erotic-perfection/.  Short version is this woman writes in, says she tries reading recommended erotica, but gets pulled out of the story because the men are ridiculously perfect.  She adds that if that's what women want, she's a bit upset nobody talked to her.  Her relationships have been all over the board size wise and none of her partners have been "perfect" but she was more than okay with it.  So essentially she's wondering what women REALLY want, and the comments are interesting.  From what I saw, it seems that some women share her view (overly perfect men are a problem and they'd rather read about people they can picture meeting in their everyday life) and some women disagree (because it's fantasy, and they want perfect in their books). 

As an important disclaimer, I do not write erotica.  I think the world will breathe a sigh of relief for that.  See, I don't have a romantic bone in my body.  I even have problems writing relationships where there's absolutely no physical contact.  I just...don't get it.  I'd butcher it so badly if I tried, it's probably better I don't.  However, I do write in a genre where the term "fantasy" is used (well, it is the fantasy genre, so...).   

The Novel That Never Ends is interesting to write.  Besides that it's never perfect and there's always something new I feel like Oh my god I have to add, it's just all the characters I'm writing about.  So, this is a fantasy novel.  Part of it is very solidly fantasy, like genre wise.  The other part is only fantasy in the respect that I only wish I could do things my characters do (which is a very different type of fantasy).  This leads me to the point, which is because I'm writing a fantasy, anything (within reason) can happen.  So, for example, if I wanted to write every single character as being sizzling hot, I could in theory get away with it.  Which brings me to the rant. 

Because here's the thing: I hate this idea that if you're writing fantasy, you should make your characters everything that turns you on (which for a sizable number of readers, would be super duper muscular men who are possessive over Their Woman).  For starters, this isn't really a huge turn-on for ME.  To be honest, if I met someone like that in real life (and by met, I just mean see them walking the street), I'd look at them and say "Meh."  Unless they happen to love writing and have no problems hearing me chatter about the latest idea that popped into my mind, and then MAYBE it's a bit of a turn-on.  I thought I'd get that out of the way first, because it's relevent to my rant.

Okay, so we have this idea that if it's fantasy, you should be writing what turns you on, and that means HOT men and HOT women and HOT creatures.  Well, I don't buy into it at all.  In this ridiculously hard to write novel, I write my "good" guys as being varied in their appearance (some of them are sizzling hot, some of them are average, one of them is super cute and looks like she's five years old, which is a problem because she's semi immortal and already has a good couple hundred years on her) and my "bad" guys as being varied but more often than not HOT and my creatures as being goofy.  Yes, goofy.  They're scary, they'll kill you, they'll kill you in the most painful ways possible, but they're hilarious to look at.  It's hopefully a little different than the fantasy genre conventions, and as soon as I get stuff more developed, it should be a lot of fun as well.  And this brings me to a point about my HOT villains.

I'm not very good at writing villains, I hate to admit.  It's a bit of a challenge to come up with their motivation for being so evil.  There's the standard take over the world aspect, which I am using.  I also want a deeper, slightly more personal reason.  One thing I'm doing well (at least, I think) is that it's not fifty villains teaming up.  There are levels of villainy and different villains want different things.  That may be a different rant for a different time.  In any case, I'm still working on them.

But one thing for sure:  My villains tend to be HOT.  And they tend to be disgusting.  A couple of main villains do this thing where they lure people to their bedroom, and they skin them, and they feed the flesh to their doglike creatures (known as Snip Snips) and make said creatures even more bloodthirsty, and they keep the skeletons for...okay, that's where I left off.  I was thinking in a future novel, they keep the skeletons to maically reanimate them and use them in their army.  Or something.  That's just the first example I could think of.  The whole thing is that I'm trying to go against this idea that HOT means good because it has been driving me up the wall.  It's why there are some genres/subgenres I frequently try, but get frustrated with after a few books.

Okay, here's another thing I just thought of.  I'm not sure if I'm writing in the Young Adult genre or not, but one reason why I wouldn't mind if I got shelfed there: I might give them a slightly healthier perspective on relationships.  Well, not exactly healthier as much as taking the "Abusive relationships are okay if the guy's hot" concept and saying "Uh, no."  I'm writing an abusive relationship and I KNOW it's an absuive.  It's just...You know how I said my villains tend to be HOT?  Well, there's this one, and his name is Toriaun.  He falls in lust/love with Callix (female lead) and at one point they have something like a relationship (besides my problems writing such a think, it's a bit one-sided; he loves her, she could do without him).  He nearly kills her one evening and has no idea why, when she's finally healthy enough to pack up and leave, she doesn't accept his "Don't go!  I NEED you!"  Because he tried to kill her and she understands that's not a good relationship.  Never mind that she's abusive as well (more mentally than physically) and yet doesn't see it.  I apologize if this was a little disjointed.  This is the first time I've been this opened on my thoughts of this particular genre and how I'd maybe change it. 

I know there's a lot more to say.  I haven't even gotten around to discussing my goofy creatures yet!  I think the important stuff has gotten out, however, so I'll leave you all with what's currently here.