BLURB:
The exotic
dancers and employees of the Queen of Clubs walk a fine line, with only wits,
beauty, and market savvy to keep them from toppling into the shark pit. Ride
shotgun through lapdances, romance, and sexual awakenings. Don't worry, these
girls won't ask what your hands are doing under the tip rail.
Cora, an adventurous student, finds
herself auditioning for a stripping gig...and it comes with more than the
asking price, including a very attractive DJ.
Queen of Clubs contains adult
content, and is intended for mature readers. Each Queen of Clubs title is a
standalone novella length work.
Katie de Long's
Fracture Point Perspective on Main Characters:
Queen of Clubs encompasses standalone stories, each one
containing a romantic or erotic arc before moving on to a different character's
arc. At this point, I've written probably twenty different stories for the
series, plus for my other series. And when you're cycling through points of
view this fast, it can be a different working.
The first thing is an awareness of how they fit into the
bigger picture, since these stories all share the same setting. Sometimes it's
cause-and-effect. A side character in a different story needs to take the
spotlight, to deal with fallout from a different story. This has gotten to be
more and more the case as I've continued Queen of Clubs, since at this point, I
have a stable of probably 40-50 dancers and staff moving in the background, and
reacting, or engaging a different main character in conversation that really should
affect them. The series can propagate itself forever this way, just focusing on
those characters. And I add more pretty regularly as needed, to have them
positioned and established when I want them.
But in the beginning, it was much vaguer. I didn't have all
of that back history to draw on. So instead, I found myself focusing more on
key interests, and the superficial aspects of the character, and using that to
draw the other experiences that would need to be in their background to define
their carriage and outward presentation. I'd start by putting together a
playlist that that character would either dance to, or feel friction about not
being allowed to dance to, if it was not clubworthy. I'd move on into makeup,
costuming, hustle techniques. Someone with a really assertive won't-take-no
lapdance hustle is less likely to be someone who has severe social anxiety.
I might find one defining experience for them, write a
sample scene with that, and then analyze the writing to look for everything
else that would define their character, particularly psychological fracture
points, the make-it-or-break-it ideas that define that particular character's
experience and struggle. For Cora, it was her exhibitionism, the way that she
rebelled to others treating her body as something to be hidden or managed. The
rest of her personality-- the attraction to stripping, the dislike of
authority, the desire to face the world on her own terms, entirely grew out of
that moment when she realized her body was a liability, both personally and
professionally, and promised she'd find some way to change that. For her,
stripping, having people look at her and accept her-- sometimes even glorify
her-- for her body is something that she's denied elsewhere, and that's the key
to her confidence in other regards. She's very young, largely unformed, but
that willingness to see how far she can go is something that can only have
knock-down effects in the rest of her life.
Contrast that with the dancer who follows her in the second
Queen of Clubs novella, Malia, for whom exotic dancing is a result of being
shut out of the kind of performance she really loves-- ballet-- due to
an injury. It's a second best, but she'll still fight to not be separated from
it. Her standoffishness toward club policy on footwear, her willingness to look
at the club not as some happy facilitator, but as another entity looking to
take things away from her... She's defensive, a little volatile, a
troublemaker, and entirely too willing to cut everything else out of her
life, but it all comes down to that lost love. And that means that she doesn't
have to be crass about it-- she can be polite, a lady in carriage and
costuming, but also have that aggressiveness, where she feels that her
stage time is threatened. She accepts people's stares for her body, because
that's the closest she gets to earning them for her dance abilities, and
because they remind her of parts of herself she is unable to access any other
way.
And then contrast that with Tori, the third dancer in
the series, for whom the dance isn't the thing, nor is the adulation. For her,
it's a control issue. She dances because there's no way in hell she can ascribe
to “the customer is always right” well enough to want or keep a regular job,
though she has the talents and education for it. Sometimes, the customer is
just an asshole. She chooses to dance because it enables her to pick clients
who are likeminded, and set her own parameters. The fact that the men who like
her are also ones who see beauty or sensuality in being dominated by a woman
doesn't hurt, either. One you realize that she's there to enjoy a world defined
only by her boundaries, and not just the sexual ones, it opens up a
world of conflicts, where she sees others telling her what to do-- be it
family, club management drawing their own lines, regulars or customers pushing
for more than she's willing to offer...
When I look into a character, I try to find that one thing
that drives them, first and foremost. Sometimes it can take a few sample
scenes, or a more thorough examination of the planned conflict (I'm a plotter.)
But most of the time, it comes pretty easily. The best plotted story in the
world means nothing if you can't find those fracture points to be able to
sculpt a reaction and let your character shatter.
EXCERPT:
I steeled myself, and tapped
his shoulder. He jumped, his elbow knocking me back against the wall as he
tumbled off the stool into me. In my platforms, I barely kept my footing. I had
practiced walking in them for two hours after I bought them, and I had to guess
that practice was the only reason I was still on my feet.
“Shit, shit, sorry. Are you
okay?” He looked up at me as he got his feet back under him, and prepared to
stand. His head was entirely too close to my hips in the tiny space, and I
chuckled, imagining him as a giant spider preparing to tie me up. I loved
awkward guys. Guys with rough edges, who were interesting to look at not
because they were beautiful, but because they were unique. Under other
circumstances, Kirk would have been right up my alley. Maybe literally in an
alley.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Katie de Long lives in the Pacific northwest, realizing her dream
of being a crazy cat-lady. As a kid, Katie flagged the fade-to-blacks in every
adult book she encountered, and when she began writing, she vowed to use
cutaways sparingly. After all, that's when the good stuff happens. And on a
kindle, no one asks why there's so many bookmarks in her library.
Stay in touch with Katie:
Website: www.delongkatie.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/delongkatie
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katie.delong.12
Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/CSk3n
Buy Cora:
Queen of Clubs is currently published monthly. Visit
delongkatie.com for preorder and purchase links, or sign up for the mailing
list, to be notified when new titles are available.
Katie de Long will offer a signed paperback of Queen of Clubs: Cora and a swag pendant to one randomly selected commenter and will offer a signed paperback of Queen of Clubs: Cora and a swag pendant to a randomly drawn host (US only).
The more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here: http://goddessfishpromotions.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteThanks for talking to me!
ReplyDeleteLove and lapdances,
Katie de Long