Orton and the Romcom...

Business is booming in the field of romantic literature...and by that I mean steamy stories which contain a whole lot of toe tingling sex! (At this point I will freely acknowledge that men both read and write these volumes too, but the reality is, the books are predominantly written for women by women.)

 

I'm not going to mention that series, you all know the one I mean. I've never read it so wouldn't want to be unfair and make comment, but largely due to it’s phenomenal success, the world has woken up to the earth-shattering notion that women like to read dirty books.

 

I'm in danger of going off on a rant here. When I first saw the term Mummy Porn used to describe a book about BDSM, I just about spat out my pipe. I mean, how bloody patronising is that? That men read smut has been generally accepted for centuries but when a woman reads it, society has to dress it up as somehow twee and light. Airy fairy fuckery to wile away the hours between feeding the kids and doing the dishes.

 

I write Yaoi. Explicit sex between men. And you know what? I am happy to admit that it's filthy. There's nothing sweet or touching about Judas MacGregor getting it on with some horny Japanese twins. My readers tell me those scenes are hot and that's exactly what I intend them to be. If anyone dared to call my work Mummy Porn, I'd send the boys round--and not in a good way.

Seemingly acceptable for women to like a wee bit of the old hearts and flowers routine, but not detailed debauchery, books aimed at the fairer sex, that have a high level of erotic content, are labelled as romance.

 

To me, this is simply another way of putting a skirt around the fact that some women enjoy pornography. So women’s reading habits are something to be ashamed of? A dirty little secret that should be hidden behind a chintz screen?

 

Granted, a lot of erotica has a romantic plotline, and don't get me wrong, I am not criticising those works at all. I'm also certain that a lot of authors are happy to have their books so titled, and good luck to them. More power to your talented elbow, I say!

 

I'm merely wondering why books which contain no, or very little romance, but a lot of raunchy action, are also placed in this section

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Is the reason for this solely because the target audience is largely female?

 

Well we can't have the little lady rooting around amongst the lads' mags now, can we?

 

Occasionally people lament the lack of love in the stories I produce with my partner in crime, Yuramei. Fair enough. If they found the books in the romance section perhaps an assumption concerning the content is understandable. But frankly, more often than not, that's where you will find them. With few retailers having a designated spot for Yaoi, books by Katsura and Yuramei, and many other predominantly female writers of that genre, will be placed under "Graphic Novels/ Romance".

 

The fact that we're not strictly a graphic novel, but illustrated prose, doesn’t worry me much. It's the romance handle which I find most difficult to sit with.

 

I’m probably not alone in being a woman who doesn’t require a prince charming between the pages to help me enjoy a good story. I’m more likely to go for two big thugs, hard at it with not so much as a need for a cursory introduction

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The relationship between my anti-hero, Judas--and the guy he rescued from addiction and prostitution, Vinny--is probably as close to sentimental as you'll get from me. Similarly, the bond between Mikhail Majewski and Fergus Campbell, albeit based on mutual attraction, is not the focus of the entire story. The series is a black comedy set in the world of organised crime, generously interspersed here and there, with graphic scenes of gay sex.

 

If you’ve ever read the play, Entertaining Mr Sloane by Joe Orton, you’ll find that a goodly amount of the plot revolves around Kath and her brother Ed, competing for the attentions of the eponymous young chancer who’s ensconced himself in their family home. That both Kath and Ed are after Mr Sloane for sex is no secret. Orton cleverly conveys, through dialogue laced with innuendo, just exactly what's going on the minds of these middle aged siblings

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The play still packs theatres almost half a century after it was written and thankfully, you'll never see it advertised as a “romcom”.

 

But maybe if it was penned today--with far more sex as our censors are not as strict as those in the nineteen-sixties--and by Josephine Orton, you would.

 

Katsura and Yuramei's unromantic work can be found at: www.bigdealcomic.com

So What's the Big Deal About Writing Smut?

This Is something that probably hasn't just happened to me. I bet there's a few female authors out there who've encountered the same issue.

I'm having a regular conversation with a man who doesn't know me very well. The fact that he's talking to me illustrates this point perfectly, I'm completely anti-social and he'll be barking up the wrong tree, as it were. He asks me what I do and I tell him I'm an author. All seems fine. I might even get a few compliments and words of praise--that does happen as people imagine the life of an author to be a glamorous one...aw...bless--then the conversation shifts when it's revealed that my novels contain...smut.

Gasp. Shock horror. No, that was just from my sister, (ha ha sorry, love you xx).

What normally happens then, is that a once fairly civilised conversation instantly plummets to the gutter and I'm treated to a wealth of filthy comments and suggestions. It doesn't seem to matter that my brand of smut is Yaoi--or men getting it on with each other, to the uninitiated.

Yes! Suddenly it's okay to hit on me and drop all pretence of respect for me being a woman--and a mother, I might add. Okay, granted, being a woman or a mother doesn't automatically give you respect but there you go. My experience as a female author of smut is that I'm treated as somehow less deserving of normal courtesy by some, when it’s discovered what I do.

Why is that, I wonder? I also write a web novel about a serial killer. No one inches away from me when they find out that wee gem.  Neither is it assumed that I'll want to know, in gory detail, methods I may not yet have considered in which to bump someone off.

When I sat down to write my first sex scene I barely knew where to begin. I'm going to blame my partner in crime, Yuramei, for the fact that there was a sex scene to be written at all. She suggested we make the book a Yaoi. I'd seen the tame sort of Yaoi and really couldn't work that with the kind of characters I write and so we agreed, explicit Yaoi it had to be.

I didn't read or watch a lot of gay porn to prepare myself for the task ahead. I did what most writers do. I invited the characters from the scene into my head, gave them a rough idea of their motivation and left them to it. I simply took notes, like a furtive voyeur who couldn't afford, or had neglected to bring, a decent camera. I wrote it all down and was actually pretty pleased with the result. Sadly, when that scene was later published, it was pointed out by the very first reviewer that the main character had used both Vaseline and a condom. Gah! Big mistake. But as the main character is Judas MacGregor, I forgave myself the lapse. He's not exactly mastermind and hadn't expected to use the Vaseline in the first place, having made his first attempt at penetration, “with spit alone”. He just went a bit overboard after his sexual partner complained about his technique--the cheek of him.

The scene still reads the same now and I'm not ashamed of it, despite Judas's sexual faux pas and the completely graphic content. Art imitates life. In life, occasionally, or so I'm led to believe, people have sex. They also eat, sleep and go to the toilet. I'd be lying if I said that there were highly detailed flushing scenes in my books but there are a lot of toilets mentioned. Judas is an incorrigible cottager.

I refuse to hang my head in shame for writing what some would describe as gay porn. The sex is not the focus of the story but the genre requires that sex is included in the content.

So some men talk dirty to me when they find out what I do. Hilariously, people often ask me, but how can you know what it's like?

My answer to that is usually, did George Lucas ever fly an intergalactic spacecraft?

That's flippant, I know. But the reality is that both male and female authors of heterosexual sex are always writing half the scene from a male point of view and half from a female. (And authors/ editors, you know what I mean. Don't get me started on POV glitches here.)

To sum all of this up, I am Katsura and I write smut. If you read it, just enjoy it. Like real sex, it's messy, funny and may contain nuts...as well as the odd mistake.

Katsura and Yuramei's work can be seen here: www.bigdealcomic.com

Their first novel, Big Deal: vol 1: Lust for Vengeance, can be purchased here:

                                              

Big Deal: Vol 1: Lust For Vengeance by Katsura and Yuramei

Writing The Bad Guy

Brutal men exist, and so do those who love them.

This is a quote from our third novel, Despite Them, and the phrase which we used to promote the book. Seems like a nice little tag line, but the words were actually inspired by the conflicts I sometimes encounter as the creator of...the bad guy.

I hope you heard ominous music in your head at the sight of those words. Okay, so I don't just create one bad guy, but a whole effing mob of them. A big bunch of thugs who some people love and others seem to hate. And on a, don't try this at home kids note, none of these crooks are intended to be role models.

Fergus Campbell. Now there's a name that tends to promote the most visceral reaction. He is, without a doubt, an utter swine of a man. A brutal criminal who thumps first then asks questions later. The reader is meant to fear for anyone whom he encounters, but I won't tell people that they're meant to hate him, or love him for that matter. It's entirely up to whoever is holding the book at the time. Personally? I'd cross the street if I saw him. Shout from a healthy distance about what a big jerk he is and of how some day, someone will kick him up and down the street in the way he so easily does to others.

In real life I'd have no time for him, but I've encountered people like him and used some of the traits I found in those people to create my bad guy.

He's charming, for one. On a first meeting one might be sapped in by that. And of course, he's extremely handsome. Being a bastard doesn't make a guy's face ugly...well not until someone socks him one for it, I guess.

So there he is. Nice suit, neatly trimmed goatee, dripping elegant compliments on unsuspecting admirers. Just like a good few of the brutes I've had the misfortune to encounter. He also has endearing qualities. He’s generous and even tender, with the man he loves. Sometimes, but not always, he’s capable of acknowledging when he’s in the wrong and making amends for that fact. With himself, at least, he is completely candid about his fails but still manages to justify his more reprehensible ones. But again only to himself. His honestly doesn’t extend to those around him.

The better qualities that he displays are perhaps what cause most conflict. Because I write him as a good-looking charmer, does that mean I condone his actions?

Hannibal Lecter is suave, intelligent and very easy on the eye. An utterly perfect bad guy, in my opinion. At some points he appears kind and thoughtful to the young FBI agent, Clarice Starling. So Thomas Harris is an advocate of murder and cannibalism? Okay, a bit extreme, but you see my point?

All people, even the most vicious, are capable of good. Even for only a fleeting moment in an otherwise savage existence.

One scene, in Despite Them, finds loveable reprobate, Judas MacGregor, lamenting that as he's the good guy—in the fictional showdown he's having with his arch enemy, Owen MacIsaac—by default, he'd have the white Stetson. In his own fashion challenged way, he considers that the black hat would look better.

If only sorting the jerks and heartbreakers from Mr Wonderful was as easy as having a quick look at their choice of head apparel.

MacIsaac, being the villain in that scene, is described as shaven headed and scarred. Perhaps more like what people expect as a typical yobbish nut-job. When I wrote him, the ex-footballer turned actor, Vinnie Jones, kept popping into my head. For me, I find that look way more attractive than Fergus's dark hair and chiselled features. But I digress, their physical appearances were not influenced by their personalities. They’re both bastards.

Brutal men do exist. The people who love them are often fully aware of their true nature. In real life, this can be hard to swallow. Especially if one is close to a victim of one of these swines.

Why does he/she keep going back to him/her?

It's a complex query which I'm not about to go into in this blog. Suffice to say, I have experience of this question.

In fiction, and in particular, my own comedic accounts of a group of self-titled hard men, I've tried to represent my characters as realistically as possible, albeit that they sometimes land in some very unrealistic situations. But I'm writing a Yaoi fantasy, and one which I hope can carry the reader away from their woes for a while.

In writing Fergus, who describes himself as a "coward", I hope I managed to create the turmoil of emotions that one often feels when dealing with the prick in our own real lives.

Katsura and Yuramei’s good, and bad, guys can be found here: www.bigdealcomic.com