Same Great Harem, 30% Less Desire

Today is one of those rare days when Hypergraffiti gets to actually earn its spurs as a "writer's blog," because I'm going to talk a bit about writing. I'm going to talk, in fact, about how much you should be willing to revise your writing (a.k.a. "sacrifice your creative vision"), not for the sake of making a better book necessarily, but to fit the demands of a particular market in which you want to publish.

First, though, some happy happy joy joy news. My Biblical fiction novel Esther, published in 2003, has sold out its initial print run of 7500 and is going to be reprinted. This doesn't usually happen to my books and so I'm elated. I'm even more elated that my publisher, Review and Herald, is making an effort to market their line of Biblical novels to a wider variety of Christian publishers, so Esther may find herself with a few more readers.

But here's where the revising part comes in. My editor, who I like to call Amazing and Wonderful Jeannette, asked if I had any changes I wanted to make before the book went to press for its second edition. I had one that had been bugging me for years (I killed off the same very minor character twice, and that's just not right) but after I fixed that I started thinking about further changes. I thought about making the book a little less ... ahem ... how to say it? ... a little less sexy.

To explain: Esther is published by an inspirational Christian press and is thus aimed at a certain market. Most readers in that market like and expect their books to be free of explicit sexual content, so those are the set guidelines for inspirational publishing. The problem with the Biblical story of Queen Esther is that it takes place in a harem. Esther gets to be queen because her one-night stand with the King impresses him more than any of the other harem gals. So it's hard to write about this story without, you know, mentioning the bedroom. (For an example of a Christian book about Queen Esther that does this sidestep rather well, try Tommy Tenney's Hadassah: One Night with the King. For an example of a book about Queen Esther that I haven't read but that allegedly goes quite a long ways in the opposite direction, try Rebecca Kohn's The Gilded Chamber. But neither of those was the book I wanted to write).

I will always be incredibly grateful to Review and Herald and to my other editor there, who I like to call Fabulous and Terrific Penny, for wielding the red pencil with a light hand and allowing me to keep at least some of the allusions to bedroom matters in the novel. Penny did tone some of my scenes down a little, but you could still get the gist of it: sexual intercourse was being had by people.

I hasten to add that these were already very tame and non-explicit sex scenes. After the editing process, they were even tamer and less explicit. But even then, the book got some complaints from people who didn't want their inspirational fiction to contain even a hint of carnality. (Along with lots and lots of positive comments, too). So when the opportunity to revise came around I wondered: was it worth making a few changes to make the bedroom scenes even tamer, if it would win the book a few more readers?

This was especially relevant with the idea of marketing it to more Christian bookstores, because these folks have fairly stringent guidelines for what you can and can't say. Witness, for example, the following paragraph from the writers' guidelines for Harlequin's Steeple Hill line of inspirational romances:

Each story should have an emotional, satisfying and mature romance; however, the characters should not make love unless they are married. These are "sweet" romances. Any physical interactions (i.e., kissing, hugging) should emphasize emotional tenderness rather than sexual desire or sensuality. There should not be an excessive reliance on kissing scenes or use of words such as "desire," "need," etc. Please use euphemisms for the more intimate body parts. Please avoid any mention of nudity.

My favourite bit here is the injunction not to use the words "desire" or "need." I could spin off into a whole diatribe about that, exploring the interesting idea that perhaps Christian women shouldn't be encouraged to admit that they "desire" or "need" intimacy. But that would be a tangent. I do recognize that certain readers have certain expectations of books that come with an "inspirational" imprint on them, and I don't want to quarrel with that. I'm trying to focus on an issue here: I had in fact used the d-word and possibly the n-word in my novel. Was I willing to make minor changes, to turn down the heat a little, in hopes that the book would reach a wider audience?

My fellow Newfoundland novelist Tina Chaulk did an excellent blog awhile ago about outside censorship and the artist's perennial problem of writing things that offend people. I'm sure most writers have had to face this dilemma in one form or another: tell the story the way I think it should be told, or tone it down to avoid offending people? There are a lot of issues here and artistic integrity is certainly a big one. I wasn't prepared to write a version of the Esther story that ignored the fact that sex is smack-dab in the centre of this book of the Bible: Esther used the one weapon that was available to women at the time, and used it to save the Jewish people. If I can't at least allude to the weapon she used, it's not much of a story.

But another concern is respecting your market. Particularly if you're writing genre fiction, you do have to be sensitive to the conventions of that genre. Indeed, if you don't, you probably won't get published. I didn't want to see a situation where R&H, tolerant of my eccentricities as a writer, left all the "steamy" scenes in, then went to peddle the Biblical novels to Christian bookstores and got told, "We'll take all of them except that Esther book, cause that's just too hot to handle."

So I wrote Amazing and Wonderful Jeannette and told her to hang on for a few more revisions. Here's a sample of what I've done so you can see what I'm talking about here. Here's a description of Esther and King Xerxes, after they're married, in the afterglow of connubial bliss. First, I'll show you what I originally wrote:

Version 1 (a teeny bit racy): They were sitting together in a tiny interior garden tucked between the King’s bedchamber and his retiring room, dressed in as few clothes as possible because of the heat of the spring night and their own recent passion. Esther sat in the cradle of her husband’s arms and legs, leaning against his well-muscled chest, both their bodies filmed lightly with perspiration.

See that? The lack of clothes, the reference to "recent passion," Esther cradled between her husband's legs, and all that perspiration? It's pretty clear what they've been up to, even if I avoided describing the scene itself and skipped straight to the afterglow. So, that was a little too suggestive for this type of book. After editing, here's the version that eventually appeared in the published book:

Version 2 (quite a lot less racy): They were sitting together in a tiny interior garden tucked between the king's bedchamber and his retiring room, wearing as light and scanty clothing as decent because of the heat of the spring night. Esther sat in the cradle of her husband's arms and legs, leaning against his well-muscled chest, both their bodies filmed lightly with perspiration.

In the editing process, the reference to their recent passion was excised, and they are wearing as "light and scanty clothing as decent," because decency is still a concern here. Everything else stays -- the King's legs, his chest, even the perspiration (I realized too late that "filmed lightly with perspiration" sounds kinda like someone's making a movie about their sweat, but anyway).

This was one of the passages I chose to re-work today, trying to make it even more innocuous, while still suggesting a bit of "sweet" romance:

Version 3 (really not racy at all): They were sitting together in a tiny interior garden tucked between the king’s bedchamber and his retiring room. The warm air of the spring night was filled with the scent of the flowers growing all around them. Esther reclined in her husband’s arms, leaning against his well-muscled chest.

Oh, how things have changed. No more recent passion, no more scanty clothing -- I've had flowers brought in to distract you instead. Esther's leaning back just in her husband's arms -- no naughty legs -- and there is no sweat, filmed or otherwise. I did keep his muscular chest in, though.

So, I don't know. Sensitive to the demands of my audience, or complete sell-out? To tell you the truth, I'm not even sure which version I like best, though I think I still prefer my original. I guess every writer has to make those decisions him/herself, and today I've been making some. I'm excited and happy the book is being reprinted, thrilled about the support I've gotten from R&H, and trying to walk that fine line between making the book as accessible as possible, while staying true to the story I wanted to tell. Those of you who have a copy of the original print run of Esther can put a red sticker on the cover to mark it out as being the "ever so slightly racier version"!!