New Story – looking for input
I while back I wrote a short story for the Gay Author’s Summer 2011 Anthology. The title was Archangel. The short story can be found here:
I’ve always wanted to go back and create a bigger, fuller story using this as template. There is a lot to the story arch I did not delve into with the short story and I won’t give that out in public – folks are going to have to buy the book to find out. 😛 But if you’ve read the story or will read it and care to help out, here are a some questions I have that I’d like to hear from readers and/or other authors. You can email any comments or post them here if you like. andrewqgordon@gmail.com
1) Sex – I’ve read quite a few m/m stories lately as a means to see what’s out there and what’s selling. I know that erotica is very popular and it sells better than drama/romance. I’m not an erotica writer, sorry. But that said, I’ve read romance stories that are replete with long detailed sex scenes. I find myself skimming them, if not just turning pages until they ends. Many of these scenes last page after page. Some are ‘flashbacks’ to prior relationships and they are still pages long. I personally find these very boring. I’m rarely turned on and even rarer do I feel a detailed sex scene added to the story.
What about others readers? Do you find it useful, desirable, necessary spice for the survival of the story?
2) If you read the story, is the description of the characters – Nick: whom everyone thinks is really nice, but is just an average guy; and Alex: the beautiful guy that everyone swoons over because he’s handsome and rich – too over done? There is a real reason for the Alex character being ‘devilishly’ handsome and stinking rich – he’s an archangel who’s centuries old. [not giving anything away since the short story is there for the reading.] Would it be better for the Nick character to be better looking than he believes, but maybe not in the same class as his best friend and Alex? Or just leave it as it is?
3) Is one long story better than several shorter books? i.e. just fleshing out the story arch from the original short story could come close to filling a 100K word novel. The full story could be 3 books long, or I could just make it 1 or 2 books. Any thoughts?
Okay, we’ll see if anyone has any useful suggestions.
Thanks
Andy
Hey Andy or Qtee 😛
I haven’t read it yet but will now. I just wanted to help if I can. Sex in a story should fit, if you just gloss over the sex, then you may get complaints. I found that out myself in the fairy stories. Readers demanded it. Saying that it has to flow with the rest of the story, and not just be, ‘Oh it’s bed time so sex happens’. 1 beautiful guy is ok, he’s an angel it fits. More than one is a bit much, ordinary is good :).
My views are do it in one, with lots of chapters. Why not do a trilogy? I have a few of those, from Merlin and Arthur and Pendragon, to Fifty shades of Grey, lol Yes it’s a trilogy.
Just my thoughts on it. Hope they help. Marky AKA Mark92.
Excellent, that was helpful. I may have to get a few beta readers to check for a) enough sexual content, or b) too much. I know it needs some, but I really don’t want to write a ten page ‘sex’ scene, much less several as seems to be the norm in m/m romance/fiction. sigh. Balance is hard. 😛