some comments on chap 8

I've rewritten the bulk of chapter 8 several times, more violent, more sexual tension, less of both, lots of different versions of the dialog.

Part of the problem is a perennial desire to be logical, when the 'logic' is full of my own biases and views and sensibilities. Of course with aliens more than in other kinds of fiction, the meanining of 'logic' will shift. The senior interrogator will have a different set of logic formulas, so I decided it made sense, followed an appropriate degree of reason, that he would be appalled at the recording or sharing of recordings of prisoner's vulnerable moments, searches, bathroom visits, but perfectly happy to conduct an invasive search in person as if that were more appropriate.

I was also tempted to use it as a forum to comment on my disapproval of the excessive airport security and the new machines that constitute a virtual strip search, overly thorough wand searches with no privacy at all, and other inappropriate behavior they call airport policy, but for the most part I refrained. At this point I hope only to leave open, perhaps encourage readers to ask themselves the question, how much is too much, and do the circumstances make a difference? All very subtly, of course.

And I want it to be entertaining. Sometimes going too far is not so much entertaining as merely vulgar and uncomfortable. A little discomfort is good, especially in a scene like this where the main character is supposed to be more than uncomfortable, leaning toward terrified and on the verge of losing control, without my using those words in the story. Discomfort means there is enough tension and specifics to cause an emotional reaction; but it doesn't necessarily take much to make the reader uncomfortable. It is always hard from the writer side, with my imagination barely captured in words, to know what is enough or too much for the reader. And of course, ideally there will be many readers, each with a different point of discomfort. If there is a formula for taking the bulk of those potential readers to the right point, I don't know it. Feedback and opinions to help me find it will always be welcome.

observations on sex in stories

Every tv show seems to assume that young handsome men and pretty women must be having sex with someone, each other or unnamed persons off stage, and rarely, if ever, married. And that's as true of supposedly realistic shows and stories (it's not onlyon tv) as on fluff shows. The sexy leads these days are never shown as married, as if being married is uncool and marriage the death of a sex life rather than an appropriate place for a rich one. In my own experience, the reverse tends to be true, with the most desireable men in my work and social circles “already taken”. If they are married on the tv shows and movies, and the characters are still desireable, then affairs are all but inevitable, as if physical beauty and desireability were 1) both the same and 2) incompatible with the CHOICE of fidelity.

I do find unmarried characters interesting, and Candice is classic in having sex in my book (nearly the only book I;ve written where the main character has anything but marriage-like relationship or none) but I really must make sure I'm not stuck in the same clche in Cerel! There's no reason some of my officers couldn't be, realistically they would be, married, traveling with spouses, and it would be interesting to show them dealing with separation, a measure of romance that would be a good ballance to Candice's troubled life... hmmm... a bit of a soft side...