Rules are there to be broken.

Just lately i've been writing a rather long erotic  story (on its way to becoming a novella) but after 13 chapters it has suddenly dawned on me that the protagonist is a bit of a Mary-Sue.  so far he does not seem to display any faults, and has not even considered doing anything devious or underhanded.

Partly my fault - I am writing it in first person, and i tend to be a bit of a nice guy.

However, it is generally considered to be a sign of bad writing to make the protagonist too virtuous or too clever, and successful writers don't do it.

Really?  what about Harry Potter?  we have an orphan who was brought up badly by selfish greedy people who never showed him any affection, and has never known friendship.  so what happens as soon as he finds out that he is a special person with special powers?  he uses them wisely, quickly makes friends with the least  important students, and is a paragon of wisdom, self restraint, and virtue.  as if.

And yet the books are enormously popular.  as is Lord of the Rings (Frodo's humility, bravery, and self sacrifice is just downright annoying), and just about any of Roald Dahls leading characters.  In fact, most children's characters have an annoying habit of being kind, considerate, clever, and courageous, with very few exceptions.

The argument is that heroes in childrens' books are meant to be an example, but is it really necessary?  One of my favorites from childhood was the Just William stories by Richmal Crompton - a rascally scamp who was constantly getting into trouble.

The fact is, giving a character flaws can be a very tricky business, and if you arent careful you completely lose the sympathy of the reader. the fact is, to engage the reader, the main protagonist has to have something that makes the reader want to put himself in their shoes.  the reader needs to be able to identify with them.   as most of us like to believe that we are basically good people, a negative character is not likely to be all that popular.

That's not to say it cant be done.  many writers have  created characters that are deeply flawed, and yet still manage to get the sympathy of the reader - though usually only in comedies.   examples that spring to mind are the characters created by Tom Sharp, Douglas Adams, or Terry Pratchett.

But even serious fiction can get away with flawed heroes.  The Eternal Champions of Moorcocks' universe, or even the famous Sherlock Holmes.  Yes, at first glance Holmes does seem like a classic Mary-Sue - he is incorruptible, all knowing, never wrong.  but he is also a psychological misfit - a social failure, a drug addict, and obsessive compulsive.

The most important flaw that is frequently overlooked is selfishness.   Most of us don't like to think of ourselves as selfish, and we abhor that quality in others - but if we are honest with ourselves, we would have to admit that at the very core of ourselves, we are essentially selfish.  and those that try to deny it the most are often the most selfish.

So why do we omit selfish actions and motives from our fictional creations?  Maybe because we are so determined to justify our own motives.

The next character you create - make them as witty, clever, resourceful, brave, and kind hearted as you like - but every now and then show their motives as being ultimately self serving.  Oh - and just occasionally allow them to be wrong.  Nobody is right all the time, and we all hate people who seem to be.

Erolit News

Just lately I have been taking  a large role in a RolePlay sim, and I've been playing characters as well as crafting storylines for it.

I am talking about Gaslight Extreme - and in particular Elysian Island.  The owner had an interesting idea for entertaining members - putting on plays.   These are sort of halfway between theatre and roleplay - we create a basic plot and story, but the actors mostly make up their own lines.

It's an evolving concept, and we are still discussing to what extent the audience can participate.  We try to encourage audience participation, but that cannot always be practical.  What for instance, occurs if a character is secretly meeting with a co-conspirator?  It is part of the play, so the audience needs to see it, but  what if someone in the audience feels it is their duty to inform other characters what is going on behind their back?  what if the audience want to intervene?  that is unrealistic and throws the whole plot out the window.

Basically, we are trying to create a whole new form of roleplay experience - complex plots with deep storylines that raise the art of RP to a new level.

There are still many problems and obstacles - availability of personnel not being the least.

A New Chapter

Myrddin's Emporium has entered a new chapter in the wake of Sensual StoneWorks closure.

Unlike many of the well established businesses in SL that have recently closed, SSW still exists - but without a sim.  the group is still active, and Merry has opened a store at the Showcase area of Supreme Beast.  Anyone who bought SSW statues more than a year ago and hasnt had them upgraded yet can get a free repair kit from MarketPlace.  As many people are still discovering, Linden Labs goofed by making an lsl command obsolete - which suddenly meant thousands of scripts no longer worked - something Merry and Minx fixed straight away, but there was no way of contacting all the former purchasers.

SSW still has a stall at Yggdrassil, and Grendels Children  also has a new store at Yggdrassil - just behind Orochi and round the corner from my new store.  Actually there are two Myrddin's Emporium stalls at Yggdrassil at the moment.  feel free to play on the Baphomet statue.

I also have a very well positioned shop at the new sim for BFA - very close to the camp fire, so a nice posoition there.  the new BFA sim is better than the old place, and incidentally  has a lot of SSW statues in it..

I also have a stall at Lots of Fun, and another at Supreme Beast, so i'm becoming a bit more ubiquitous.  As I have more Adult rated stores, I have started to display the SSW associate venders that Merry gave me, so you can buy a lot of their products from my shops too.

Other news is i have just finished a new product - something that is generating quite a bit of excitement, and getting a lot of laughs.    What can be funnier than a barrel of monkeys?   Well how about a barrel of horny monkeys?

I am also working on a few more projects that are almost done, so stay tuned.

End of an Era

End of an Era

Sensual StoneWorks, the birthplace and long time home of Erolit is no more!  Well, the sim is no more, Sensual StoneWorks as an entity still exists.  Merry still sells SSW statues at Supreme Beast Showcase area on Beast Island, and most of SSW's products can be bought at MarketPlace.  Also, the main group (Sensual StoneWorks Updates is still active, and last month the Associate Venders were re-introduced.

Sensual StoneWorks was a popular sim for many years, but a decline in visitors and a drop in sales finally made a thriving sim into a loss making money pit, and like many well established sims, they were forced to call it a day.  This is not the first iconic Sim to have closed just lately, and probably wont be the last - I think 2012 will go down as a black year for Second Life.  I think the lesson for everyone is if you have a favourite sim - visit it as often as you can, spend Lindies when you can afford it, and when you see a donation bucket at a sim you like - tip a few L$, because if you dont support them, they will vanish.

I was heartbroken to be honest - I had a nice store next to Orochi, and another one next to Zebranna, and between them they managed to net me a lot of customers.   I currently have a Myrddin's Emporium at the mall on ~Beast Island (near the party area), another at Lot's of Fun on Somani, and a store not too far from Orochi at Yggdrassil.

Erolit will continue - I shall be holding meetings on my little patch at Blaidd Drwg, and of course I shall continue to teach building classes.  For a few months now I have been working as teacher and builder at Elysian Island Gaslight Extreme (a popular BDSM / Slave roleplay club), where i have been teaching basic and intermediate building skills, sculpting, and making animations & poses.

I sometimes get involved in the roleplay too.  We put on freeform plays that are a sort of ad-hoc theatre.  initially my role was to make props and buildings, but i've also penned a few storylines.  This is a pretty natural extension to the erotic  literature, which I am seeing as the potential future for Second Life.  We all know how popular 50 Shades of Grey has become, and virtual worlds are a way to bring erotic literature to life.

I am trying to find new ways to tell my stories.  putting a card reader in a prim book is a little bit mainstream and my storytelling plant has proven to be a popular item.  the next stage is to make smaller versions for people who do not have room for a large perverse triffid.

Unfortunately, due to increased hours at work, having to find a new site for Myrddin's Emporium, and doing a lot at Gaslight Extreme, I missed the deadline for applications to this year's Steam Hunt.  I had intended to enter the Twisted hunt this year too - but that will have to wait another year.

However, Cummere Mayo is running a Tentacle Addicts hunt in December, and i will not be missing out on that.  As many of my former students and customers know, tentacles are my specialty.

Invasion of the Uranians

I've created a poster to advertise our events, and a group logo.i'm not 100% with it, so I may change it slightly.

The title sounds like a Sci-Fi story doesnt it?  well it may be yet - Sci-Fi and fantasy are great ways to explore new ways to enjoy sex.

I've been writing more erotic literature lately, and playing with new ideas.  Hot porn and graphic text is great for short stories or story-lines for SL toys, but i want to branch out into longer stories and  a full novel.

I am currently interested in exploring the social aspects of a three gender society - how it could work, why it might evolve etc.   in spite of great progress in the last fifty years, Western Society is still way behind Asian culture when it comes to acceptance of a third gender option; but the World faces a severe population crisis that can only be a change in mindset.

As you  have probably surmised by now, I am using this as the basis of writing Homosexual erotic stories.  I felt that as a Gay man, it seems ridiculous that until recently I have not written fiction with a homosexual content.  Such  erotic fiction is not only  attractive to Gay men, but also popular with straight women, and even a few straight (or bi-curious) men, so there is a scope for more of it.

Uranian is a term that was coined in the 19th Century for what was later termed Homosexual, but I rather like the word, and would like to see it's return to use.  Hence the title of this blog.   Uranus was considered an appropriate god of the third gender because after he was castrated by Cronus, his genitalia was cast into the sea, and thus the seas gave forth Aphrodite - a goddess born of an emasculated man, rather than of a woman.

So, men are from Mars, women are from Venus, and homosexuals are from Uranus - cue for a few jokes there.  Uranus is unique in being named after a Greek god rather than a Roman god as the other planets are.  there are two symbols to choose from - one being a circle with a H on it (for Herschel - the discoverer and an alternative name for it that never caught on), and the other being a circle with a dot in the middle and an arrow pointing straight up.

An interesting and early use of Science Fiction to explore attitudes towards homosexuality was Theodore Sturgeon's "The World Well Lost", which though originally rejected by publishers in 1953 has since become recognized as a milestone in literature.

Of course, there is no reason to stop at three genders.  in nature, there are species that have as many as five different gender roles.   It would be a mistake to believe that sex has only one purpose (to procreate), in the natural world as well as human society, sex fulfills a social function, and the more complex a society, then the more complex we can expect sex to be.

At the moment we are standing on the precipice - genetic engineering is taking more and more of a role in our fate.  How long will it be before we can choose the gender of our offspring by taking a pill during pregnancy?  what will be the long term ramifications of this?

Well, I am declaring this month to be Science Fiction month for EroLit, so why not explore new conscepts yourselves.