12/17/23
To Thine Own Self Be True
This is number forty-one in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
THIS ABOVE ALL, to thine own self be true
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell. My blessing season this in thee.
Hamlet, Act I, Scene 3
I’m not sure how long before I was actually cast in Hamlet, I became aware of this quote. I suspect, however, that I assumed it was biblical. Any good quote must have come from the Bible. Right?
But it’s one of the gems of literature that I also think is often misinterpreted. When I hear it quoted these days, it is usually to the tune of “I do whatever I want and I speak my mind no matter what.” That essentially denies the preceding twenty-one lines of fatherly advice Polonius gives his son Laertes before sending him off to France. The beginning of this soliloquy is “And these few precepts in thy memory look thou character.” Polonius generally exhorts his son to high character, reserved behavior, and limited speech. He expects that his advice to be true to himself is reflected in a noble character.
Which brings me to writing erotica. I write, as I said last week, to be read. Unlike the writers I hear who state they don’t write for others, only for themselves, so they don’t need to please anyone else, I do write for others. But at the same time, I must be true to myself.
When I first started writing erotica, I was surprised at the response of readers to what I was writing. I originally wrote The Art and Science of Love as a kind of therapy because I needed a happy ending. The success of the serial surprised me and lifted my spirits considerably. I decided to write a book that I’d thought of years earlier, but never really got off the ground. But it would be a long story and I wanted to keep my name fresh in the minds of readers on SOL so they didn’t forget about me.
That next story—a short story titled “Welded Together”—was a dismal failure. There were some real reasons it flopped and they were lessons I needed to learn. You see, ASL and “Welded Together” were not my first projects. I already had three books in the market with more underway. I’d published over a dozen books by other authors. I considered myself a professional in the industry.
But I started writing on SOL because I wanted a happy ending, and I forgot that was what most of my readers also wanted. My literary fiction and mysteries (see Wayzgoose or Nathan Everett) did not have particularly happy endings. People who read those genres are not necessarily looking for happy endings. I betrayed my own intent, however, by giving “Welded Together” a bitter ending, and I received scathing comments as a result. I rewrote the ending in time to stem the flood, but the story was not very good at that point.
The story stuck with me because I thought the concept had a lot of potential that I’d failed to live up to. So, when I wrote the stories in Pygmalion Revisited a few years later, I rewrote that story as “Iron Alchemy” and included it in my stories of Pygmalion. “Rewrote” is too light a term. I completely threw out the story and started from scratch with the same basic theme, and it is one of the most beautiful stories in the collection. The fact was that in the original, I had not been true to either myself or my readers—corrected in the new version. Pygmalion Revisited is available at Bookapy.com.
So, my first principle in writing erotica is that we get a happy ending. If I don’t have a happy ending to my erotic stories, then I’m not being true to myself or my readers.
However, that doesn’t automatically make every story happy all the way through. In fact, my second principle is that you can’t have a “happily ever after” if you have “happily ever before.” Pain and loss are things that make people compassionate, loving, empathetic, and aware. Loss is an obstacle that must be overcome in order to have that happy ending.
I have often been accused of letting my liberal political views creep into my stories. In fact, I recently received a truly lovely (unintentionally) compliment in the comments to Double Take. “Woke garbage,” said Papawtoo. Thank you. I try to always be aware of and concerned about social injustice. That is the definition of woke, and I’m happy that makes it into my stories. For me, that means equally fair treatment to characters of all races, religions, genders, sexual preferences, and political viewpoints. It is who I am and I must be true to it.
I place a disclaimer at the head of my stories now that I never used to consider important.
This book contains content of an adult nature.
This includes explicit sexual content and characters whose beliefs may be contrary to your religious, political, or world view.
If a person is unable to deal with religious, political, or world views that differ from their own, I don’t consider them adult enough to read my stories. You don’t have to agree with it. Just deal with your own response to it. I don’t write material to offend people. I write material that will be thought-provoking and entertaining.
“This above all, to thine own self be true.”
What and who I am will be revealed through my stories. I cannot help it and wouldn’t if I could. There is nothing about my religion or politics that requires me to convince you that I am right. Nor is there anything in my religion or politics that requires me to listen to you trying to convince me.
Enjoy the story for what it is.
I remember hearing once that the difference between reality and fiction is that fiction must be believable. Next week, I’ll deal with what is believable and what is not believable in erotica: Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
