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Enter Greyson Dante, fire demon. Greyson’s there to assess
how real a threat Megan actually is, but there’s more to the
story than either of them assumed at first. And of course,
there’s some serious attraction going on between them,
despite the problems they face in having a real future
together.
Some of those problems will become clearer in the second
book, DEMON INSIDE, which will be released by
Juno/Pocket at the end of July 2009; I’m a little concerned
about that, because it was originally set for a winter
release and the action takes place a week before Christmas!
It’s also a bit darker overall, but I really hope readers
still enjoy it; I was totally blown away by the
enthusiastic, positive response the first book got, and I’m
really very pleased with the second book as well so I hope
you are too.
It’s a really fun series, I think, at least it’s a lot of
fun for me to write. Megan isn’t a “kick-ass” heroine, and
she has a strong sense of self-preservation, but she’s also
responsible and intelligent and I hope very likeable. I just
turned in my proposal for the third book, and if all goes
well I think it’s going to be even funnier and more exciting
than the first.
Personal Demons is quite a light-hearted book, but I
understand you have a new series coming out with Del Rey
that’s a bit darker. Any snippets you can tell us about
that?
Oh, yes. The Chess Putnam books (I sometimes call them the
Downside books on my blog as well) which start at the end of
this year with UNHOLY GHOSTS are much, much
darker. Cesaria “Chess” Putnam is an orphan, a former abused
foster child, and a drug addict living in a punk-rock ghetto
known as Downside. In 1997 there was a ghost apocalypse; the
dead rose from their graves and almost literally decimated
the human population. At the end of that period—known as
“Haunted Week”—a new Church came into power, the Church of
Real Truth, and they used magic to defeat the ghosts and
lock them below the earth.
Now the Church is in charge. They’re government and religion
all in one. Chess works for the Church as a Debunker;
because ghosts are still such a threat, if one shows up in
your house the Church will pay you a settlement, which means
lots of people attempt to fake hauntings.
It’s a very creepy world, I think, where witchcraft and
ghosts are real and magic is part of people’s everyday
lives. But there’s magic and there’s magic; I based the
system in the books largely on Traditional British
Witchcraft, so it’s a very serious and logical type of
energy magic. No lighting candles with the mind or anything
like that, although I do take a few liberties here and
there, of course.
And of course a large part of the series is about Chess’s
world and the people of Downside; Chess’s drug dealer Bump
and his enforcer, a big greaser everyone calls Terrible. Lex,
who is part of a rival drug gang. There’s lots of death and
drugs and punk rock and muscle cars and blood rituals and
all sorts of good stuff, and I’m really, really excited
about it.
Are both series paranormal romances?
They’re both urban fantasies, really, but the Demons books
do skirt the paranormal romance line a lot more closely, I
think. From the beginning the Megan/Greyson relationship has
been a large part of the books’ focus. But the Downside
books are definitely UF. There are some romantic subplots
and elements but it’s definitely a subplot; I’m writing the
third book now and it’s the first one where the romance part
is getting almost as much attention as everything else. I
certainly hope readers will like the romance in them, but
it’s not as central to the stories as in the Demons books.
But of course there are sex scenes in all of them, heh heh
heh.
You also write erotica as December Quinn. Was there
anything in particular that inspired you to want to write
erotica, or was it just a genre you found interesting?
Oh, I just loved writing them! I started getting serious
about writing in 2002 or so, after my first daughter was
born. And I like reading romances, so that’s what I wanted
to write.
Funnily enough, I found that while I enjoyed all aspects of
romance writing, it was the sex scenes where I really had
the most fun. Then I discovered Ellora’s Cave and
practically screamed; *that* was what I wanted to write! I
got derailed by another pregnancy and the birth of my second
daughter, but as soon as I could get back to the computer I
got to work, and in 2007 I had my first release at EC, a
vampire romance called BLOOD WILL TELL.
Did you find it difficult to transition from writing erotica
to paranormal romance? Did you need to change anything
about your writing, or was it a change in how often the deed
was done?
I didn’t find it difficult, no; it happened pretty
naturally, I think. Much as I loved writing erotic romance I
started wanting to branch out a bit, so the world of
PERSONAL DEMONS was something I’d been working on as
a little side idea for a while. And I really had so much fun
writing it, and while I was in the middle of the second one
the idea for UNHOLY GHOSTS came to me and that
was pretty much it! I’m taking a bit of a break from erotic
romance for the time being, actually, and trying my hand at
some new things.
I did need to change my writing a bit, yes; mostly the
terminology I used. While there are some words I really
enjoy using in sex scenes (like “cunt”, lol) and as much as
I try to be open about that word and bring it back into use,
it really wouldn’t have fit into the rest of the Demons
books. So I did have to get a little more euphemistic, but I
enjoyed that, and I was really quite proud of PD’s sex scene
and am of the scenes in the upcoming books as well, both the
demons and the Downside books.
And yes, when the focus of the book isn’t on the romance you
can’t use as many sex scenes, since those are largely about
character and relationship. So simply by virtue of writing
in a different genre a lot of the sex scenes go. I’m a big
believer that if it’s important enough to the book for your
characters to have sex then it’s important to the book to
show us that scene, but when you have an actual couple in
the books you can relax a little. Megan and Greyson are like
bunnies in the second Demons book but there are only two
actual sex scenes; there’s a lot of inference instead.
Because these are two people who have a lot of sex. Of
course something new or different isn’t happening between
them each time. And if nothing new or different is
happening, in that case, it is enough just to let the reader
know what they’re doing (if you want/need to) and move on
with the story.
In sex scenes have you ever lost track of how many arms and
legs there are in a scene?
Lol, no, luckily. I have had issues with choreography
before, though, when writing ménage stories with my critique
partner Anna J. Evans.
What would be your main tips for anyone who has to write a
sex scene in their books?
Hmm. Okay:
*Decide what the purpose of the scene is. What does it need
to demonstrate about the characters? Make it mean something.
If it’s just sex for sex’s sake, readers will know it, and
they’ll be bored.
*Keep the language and tone in keeping with the rest of the
book
*Know who these people are. If your heroine is ticklish
throughout, she’s still going to be ticklish when having
sex. If your hero* is shy about letting people into his
heart, he’s still going to be, even while having sex.
*Show, don’t tell. Don’t tell us something feels good and
leave it at that. Show us how they respond. Show us how
carefully the hero touches the heroine or how she digs her
fingers into his back or whatever. Sensory detail is so
important; a sex scene without it isn’t going to do anyone
any good.
*Don’t push yourself beyond your comfort level. You can
write a perfectly good, sexy sex scene without going all
porn-star. You can. If you’re not comfortable writing
graphic sex, don’t write it; readers will sense your
discomfort and the scene will fall flat. Really. There’s
nothing wrong with just writing a few short lines to convey
the emotion of what’s happening, while not using any words
more explicit than “enter”.
(I use “hero” and “heroine” but that of course does not mean
a sex scene has to be about a man and a woman. It’s just for
ease of writing.)
Speaking of tips. You recently ran a ‘Tips on Writing Sex
Scenes’ on your blog. Did you enjoy doing that?
Oh, it was a blast. Totally amazing. I loved doing it. I’d
never dreamed something like that would be that much fun,
and I guess it was fun for people to read as well, which
made it even cooler.
What book did you have the most fun writing?
UNHOLY GHOSTS, absolutely. I wrote the entire
thing in eight weeks; the characters and the world just came
to me so sharply and clearly, and I just knew when I was
writing it that this was something special, something very
different. It was a real challenge for me and I loved it.
Have you ever made a bad typo in your writing? (I once wrote
a scene that had someone grabbing their big ass gun to
threaten another character. Only I left out the word gun. So
I like to check I’m not the only one.)
Oh, of course! Too many to count! I know I wrote something
just the other day where I accidentally wrote “shoes”
instead of “shows” so it was about throwing shows or
something. I think I even Twittered it, it was so bad. |
You published your first Stacia Kane novel with Juno Books
in 2008 and have a second book coming out soon. Can you tell
us a little about them?
