How to Research a BDSM Novel

For those of us who write erotic romance novels, especially those with BDSM themes, we occasionally get the snicker, a wink, a smart-ass comment and annoying questions, like: Do you research all those naughty scenes in your books? The quick answer is YES, but not the way you may think.

It took me a long time to decide to write a BDSM novel. I’ve read many over the years and was intrigued by the power dynamics and sensuality. I hesitated about writing my own books because I knew there was much more to these stories than dressing my characters in lots of leather, having them wield whips and chains and making up safe words. The depth of emotion and intensity in the relationships are very complicated and, I believed, difficult to portray well unless well researched. Although the stories are fiction, I wanted to portray the lifestyle as accurately as I could. Writing my first book did take a lot of research and courage, and I may have gotten a few details wrong. I’m still learning. I’ll be taking a three-day workshop on the topic in NYC soon, and look forward to spicing up my next BDSM novel with what I learn. More on that later.

Why? Why do couples/partners become involved in the BDSM lifestyle? There are probably many reasons. Some may enjoy the thrill of escaping into a sensual fantasy world. The excitement of exploring the forbidden and intense physical stimulation. And/or the joy of sharing deep intimacy and trust with another person. Please share your thoughts on this.

Here are a few suggestions for researching the BDSM Novel:

-Ask authors who are experts in the genre. I asked author Joey Hill lots of questions at  RT Convention one year. She gave me lots of suggestions and resources to check out.

-Read tons of fiction books in the genre.

-Read numerous non-fiction books. I’ll give a list of some at the end.

-Sign up on www.fetlife.com and perused the various groups and read posts to get a feel for the various kinks, lifestyles and lingo.

-Check out online stores for bondage furniture, hardware and bondage wear to dress you characters, furnish your dungeon and provide implements for your characters to play with. Go to fetish or sexy lingerie shops.

-Go to workshops. Yes, there are workshops on BDSM out there. Dr. Charley Ferrer, World Renowned Clinical Sexologist, TV/Radio Talk Show Host, Award Winning Author  is giving a 3-Day intensive workshop in New York City called BDSM for Writers. Attendees will visit a BDSM club and understand how to use BDSM psychology and power exchange between the characters in your stories, get the details of a scene right, add sensory details to liven every scene. Yes, I’ll be  attending this http://www.bdsmforwriters.com/Conferences.html

-Go to conferences. Many conferences are giving workshops on BDSM. Romanticon October 11^th-14th http://ecromanticon.com/  . I’ll be doing a workshop with Joey Hill: BDSM Romance: Why Do We Love it. And also BDSM, Hurts So Good with Desiree Holt and Francesca Hawley.

-Talk to those in the lifestyle. If you’re open and honest and ask sincere questions you’ll usually get open and honest answers in return. Online sites like Fetlife is a good site for that. Post a question saying you’re a writer and would like to learn more about such and such. Some authors who write in the genre are also involved or connected in the BDSM lifestyle and they may be open to be a resource. Participating in the lifestyle is not a prerequisite for writing it well. You can write about an astronaut walking on the moon, a gladiator fighting in ancient Roman, or a caveman (a real one, not the hunky Ellora’s Cave one) discovering fire even if you’ve never actually experienced those lives.

Websites:

http://www.holisticwisdom.com/

http://www.dungeondelights.com/store/index.php
http://eXtremeRestraints.com
http://www.purplepassion.com/Home.htm
http://www.bondagefetishstore.com
http://fetlife.com
https://www.bondage.com
http://donsubfriends.com/1home.shml
http://www.asubmissivesjourney.com/pageb.html
http://www.dungeonfuniture.com/frameset-about.htm
http://www.leathernroses.com/
http://bdsm-education.com/sitemap.html
http://www.sexuality.org/
http://www.stockroom.com/gear/bdsm_furniture/
http://www.toys4lust.com/furniture.htm

Books: (just a few suggestions)

BDSM for Writers -  Dr. Charley Ferrer

BDSM the Naked Truth -  Dr. Charley Ferrer
Screw the Roses, Send Me The Thorns -  Philip Miller and Molly Devon
The Mistress Manual -  Mistress Lorelei
The Loving Dominant -  John Warren and Libby Warren
SM101: A Realistic Introduction – Jay Wiseman
The Ethical Slut – Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy
Sensual Magic: A Guide to S/M or Adventurous Couples – Patrick Califia
The New Topping Book – Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy
Two Knotty Boys Show You the Ropes – Two Knotty Boys and Larry Utley
The New Bottoming Book – Hardy and Easton

My stories that have either a BDSM theme or elements:

EMERALDDUNGEON

“TattooWitch” in SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, Vol. 1
DESERTOF THE DAMNED
DAMNEDAND DESIRED
DAMNEDAND DEFIANT (coming August 15^th)

The Morning After His Spell, #SixSunday

#sixsunday

Happy Six Sentence Sunday! Thanks for stopping by. I would love to hear what you think. If you’d like to check out other Six Sentences, go to this link: http://www.sixsunday.com/ Enjoy!! 

From my new paranormal erotic romance to be released on August 15th from Ellora’s Cave, Damned andDefiant, Book 3 in the Demons in Exile series.

His collection was complete. He should leave her here, now. After all, he’d picked her up along the highway. Why not leave her where he found her? When she awoke, she wouldn’t remember their encounter.

       Dropping down onto the sand beside her, he brushed her hair back.

The Demons are Coming! The Demons are Coming!

August 15th.

Damned and Defiant, coming soon

DAMNED AND DEFIANT, Book 3 in the Demons in Exile series will be released at Ellora's Cave. I'm excited because this erotic romance was an unusual story to write. I'm very please how the final story arc turned out. It wasn't my original plan. After the first book was released



(DESERT OF THE DAMNED) readers wrote in and asked if Dante would come back and find love. But he was one of the antagonists in the book, the evil demon who ends up killing a few people. The readers sympathized with his desperate situation. He's a complex bad guy and not the truly evil one. Gwyllain represents ultimate evil. She's the ruling demoness and is trapped in her alternative universe. All the other demons are forced to serve her or their world will be destroyed.



I had to do a lot of thinking about my original three-book story arc. Could I change it and redeem Dante in the end? It took a lot of work in book two DAMNED AND DESIRED, which finaled in the EPIC Awards. So for book three I gave Dante a chance to redeem himself and find love. But he has to earn it!

Here's the blurb:

Damned and Defiant: Coming to Ellora's Cave August 15.
Available soon after at Amazon, B&N and other vendors.

Book 3 in the Demons in Exile series.

Mortal women surrender to Dante’s seductions. He is a Drone, an immortal who feeds off their lifeforce energy—the chi that keeps his kind alive. When his dimension is on the edge of destruction, Dante must seek the help of one special woman.

Haley Moore is a Sha Warrior—a mortal with excess lifeforce energy. She has always had a strong attraction to Dante and when they meet again he thinks luck is on his side because his quota of chi energy would be obtained after one scorching scene with this mortal. But the problem is that he is overwhelmingly attracted to her and once with this woman won’t be enough.

Haley tries to draw out the man buried deep within the demon. Their fierce, undeniable passion unravels his plans and threatens her life. Can Dante bear to abandon her when he leaves Earth forever? Dante will have to choose whether to return to his world or to give up his immortality and share his future with Haley.

#SixSunday Damned and Defiant

Happy Six Sentence Sunday! Thanks for stopping by. I would love to hear what you think. If you’d like to check out other Six Sentences by other authors, go to this link: http://www.sixsunday.com/ Enjoy!! 

From my new paranormal erotic romance soon to be released from Ellora’s Cave, DAMNED AND DEFIANT, Book 3 in the Demons in Exile series. This is Dante's story. He's a demon torn between survival on his alternative world and the love of a mortal woman.

The Six:

Beside her, a campfire blazed, keeping away the night creatures of the Arizona desert. She moaned, teasing him with her sultry movements and her scent. The look she gave him made him ache with a desperate hunger. The woman’s sexual appetite could yank her out of the trance if he wasn’t careful. Dante swirled the energy field around her, easing her deeper into his spell. Her eyes glazed over.

My Favorite Bad Boys

Bad boys! Whew! I'm turning the fan on HIGH and reaching for a cool glass of iced caffè mocha. We know they’re wrong, wrong, wrong for us but still there’s something irresistible about the them. Why???

I think one of my first boy crushes in seventh or eighth grade was a bad boy. He had streaked blond hair that was a little longer than most of the boys in school, dark, smoldering eyes, wore jeans (which was not allowed back then in my school) and had that don’t-mess-with-me look. I didn’t know his name and never talked to him. He didn't know I existed. SIGH—I was way too shy.

Is it the nonconforming, defiant or tough-guy attitude? A certain swagger, look, boldness, confidence(conceit)? Or a sign of strength, testosterone overload? Or maybe deep down women thing they can save/rescue/redeem them?

Evolutionary psychologist say it's instinct that we're attracted to the alpha male's strength for reproductive reasons. Whatever.

Who are some of your favorite Bad Boys? Here are a few of mine. I'll also share my bad boy Dante Akanto from my novel DAMNED AND DEFIANT, coming soon from Ellora's Cave and a short excerpt at the end.

TV and Movies:

John Bender (Judd Nelson) Breakfast Club          

Wade “Cry-Baby” Walker (Johnny Depp) Cry-Baby

Dallas (Matt Dillon) The Outsidders
Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) Fight Club
Frank Abbagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) Catch Me if You Can
Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) The Twilight Saga

Spike (James Marsters) Buffy the Vampire Slayer  

Ren McCormack (Kevin Bacon) Footloose
Danny Zuko (John Travolta) Grease
Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli (Henry Winkler) Happy Days
Logan, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) X-men

Jim Stark (James Dean) Rebel Without a Cause

 

****

One of my favorite Bad Boys in my novels is Dante, a demon from my Demons in Exile series. I just sent in the edits for Damned and Defiant, the third book in the series. And by the title, I think you can tell there’s a bad boy in it. Thanks to a few readers who emailed and asked if Dante would find love, I ended up turning my series arc around and giving Dante Akanto his story. I was trying to find an image for Dante. I think this one could work. What do you think?     

Redemption stories have strong themes and this one has a number of unique twists I think the readers will enjoy.

Dante is a tortured hero, immortal with a mission to keep his alternative world from destruction. But what happens to his world and his life when he makes the biggest mistake of his immortal life and falls in love with a mortal woman? Or is it a mistake?

Here’s a short excerpt. (A bad immortal with a conscience.) Release date is TBA.

From DAMNED AND DEFIANT:

… the chi energy rushed into him. Control, control. He had to slow down or he’d drain her.

When he felt her energy weaken, he pulled away and stood. The woman lay there, in a deep, trance-like sleep, her eyes open but dazed. As he watched her, something inside him stirred. His collection was complete. He should leave her here, now. After all, he’d picked her up along the highway. Why not leave her where he found her? When she awoke, she wouldn’t remember their encounter.

Dropping down onto the sand beside her, he brushed her hair back. He’d been hanging around Sakari too long. No wonder that Drone chose to become a mortal. She got too personal with her Kithra and it always got her into trouble.

Dante got to his feet, got dressed and collected his belongings, stowing them away on his bike. Glancing back to the woman, he saw her curl up on her side and shiver as if the desert night air had chilled her. She was coming out of the trance. He needed to leave. He could cover her with a blanket. The night was cool and she was naked. After covering her, he stood over her and watched her sleep. She snuggled deeper under the covering and sighed. His cock twitched, then hardened. It took all his willpower not to lie next to her and pull her into his arms. Not for another collection of chi, but to feel her body close. Fuck. He kicked a stone into the fire and sparks rose into the sky.

He couldn’t leave her. He didn’t know why but he just couldn’t do it. There was no way he was going to let Sakari or any of the Drones find out about this. After he helped her dress, he folded up the blanket and got her back onto his bike. She was awake, but still in a semi-trance. He extinguished the fire, buried the ashes so there was no sign that anyone had ever been there and drove his bike back toward the highway. He found a budget motel and pulled into the parking lot.

“Here’s your stop,” Dante said in a friendly manner. As she climbed off the bike, he slipped some cash into her jeans pocket.

She looked at him a little confused. “My stop? I can’t afford to stay here.”

“Sure you can. You said you found some money at the last rest area you were at. You have it in your pocket.”

Fishing in her jeans, she held up the bills. “Wow. Oh, yeah. I guess I forgot.” She laughed. “I should save this money though. I abandoned my car shortly after I left Texas. It died. But I have a sleeping bag. I’ve been camping out.”

“No, you need a bed and a safe place to sleep for the night.” Dante used his telepathic influence again. He wanted to make sure she’d have a safe place to recover. By morning she’d regain her strength and her mind, although she’d have forgotten all about their encounter, all about him.

“It would be nice to sleep in a real bed and use a shower, not wash up in a rest area. Will you stay too?” she asked.

He gripped the handles on his bike and dared to glance at her lush mouth. Her lips were pressed in a sexy pout. If he kissed her, he knew he wouldn’t have the power to leave. “Can’t.”

She sighed. “Thanks for the lift.” She waved goodbye and strode toward the motel. By morning he knew she’d forget about their sexual encounter in the desert.

Dante turned his bike around and rode back onto the highway.