A Story Is Still A Story: These Are the Roys Of Our Lives

One thing I find fascinating about a lot of people who watch only prestige TV? They assume it's automatically operating on a higher level, and more subversive, than mass-consumption series like Law & Order or One Chicago and what-have-you.

As though streaming or a bigger budget or an edgy cast means the basic foundations of storytelling are somehow different or better. They aren't. And those who constantly screenshot frames and zero in on props, looking for Meaning...oftentimes they are overlooking the obvious.

Because obvious messaging is boring, right? God, it's so pedestrian. If it's a smart show, then it has to be stimulating me intellectually and making me look deeper. No. Really, it does not. Often, the writer is still telling a core story that boils down to right vs. wrong.

Put another way, the Roys on Succession are a big-budget, award-nominated, variation on Days of our Lives' DiMeras*. The archetypal warring family with the patriarch they're desperate to impress and live up to. And, frankly, none of those kids jockeying for control can possibly measure up. Those who watch both shows are probably like "Yup, I know what the crux of this is." While many prestige-only viewers are flailing to assign "elevated" meaning.

This goes for things like Ted Lasso as well. I often feel like some viewers don't watch any other shows, because the basic foundational storytelling of a comedy or dramedy is missing them entirely. They can't see the forest for the trees that don't actually exist. Like, no, a heartfelt comedy with the message of "believe" is not going to have the Dutchman assault Rebecca while she's too drunk to consent. That is breaking the contract with the genre and with the viewer. But people were assuming ambiguity and some sort of awful "gotcha." When the writers were doing no such thing. 

It occurs to me that the word "prestige" comes from the French for "illusion." It's "a conjurer's trick," per Merriam-Webster. The first definition that comes up on Google is "widespread respect and admiration felt for someone or something on the basis of a perception of their achievements or quality." On the basis of a perception. Sometimes what you think you are seeing is not what's actually there. And that stands as much for the magician being obvious as it does for them pulling the wool over your eyes while they saw someone in half. What if the illusion in question is that it's deeper than what it actually is? The audience perception of this as a trick when it's not a trick at all.

A story is not lesser because its meaning is discernible and blatant. And writers can be telling the same core stories no matter what network or streaming channel their project is airing on. Right vs. wrong, good vs. evil, the patriarchy and white supremacy often win out, and kindness can be inherent in every gesture. Sometimes, there's no need to sift through the sands in the hourglass looking for more than what's there. The sand itself is enough.  

*Anyone who thinks comparing the DiMeras to the Roys is an insult? I hope Stefano's ghost haunts your pompous elitist ass.

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The Patriarchal Call is Coming From Inside The House

*A version of this was posted on Facebook in late April.

I've been thinking, lately, about cis men's acceptance into — and often domination of — feminine-coded spaces. Mainly because I have this clawing, gut-wrenching resentment of it that's been building over the past few years. It's like acid reflux but less pleasant. I tried to flip it around. To interrogate it from a different perspective. "Suleikha, if someone was this resentful of your inclusion in an exclusively white space, what would you say?" But you know what...? That's not the same thing. Because in NO WAY would I be allowed to gain the kind of power and notoriety that men acquire amongst women's groups. I would not be ceded the floor at every opportunity. My word would not be treated as gospel. You can be the token minority, but you can never lead the pack. That is not the case when you're a dude surrounded by women.

Is there an element of misandry in what I'm feeling? Probably. I'm self-aware enough to acknowledge that. But I also know that it's a particular type of man who inspires this roiling in my gut. There are plenty of guys I don't mind having around when I'm with women friends or with fellow industry professionals. The ones that rankle are the sea lions, the mansplainers, the guys who have to jump up and down and go, "Look at me!" so that every eye in the room is now on them. Because it's disingenuous. It's disrespectful. It's claiming a space as yours, marking your territory and turning a collaborative space into your harem.

Reversions, Revisions and Reveals, oh my!

As many of you know, Samhain Publishing has closed its doors. This means that my Bollywood Confidential stories — Spice and Smoke, Spice and Secrets and Bollywood and the Beast, are no longer available for purchase in their current incarnations. My plan is to slowly re-release them via self-publishing. I need find new covers, strip all the Samhain-y aspects and probably edit and revise a ton. Here's what you can expect:

•Bollywood and the Beast will be back first, sometime in the first half of the year.
•Spice and Secrets will be next, likely with some additional text and revisions to make it worth your dollars.
•Spice and Smoke is...yeahhhhh. Guys, IDK. It basically needs to be split into two novellas. And it needs a HUGE amount of work. It was my first novella and I've never been quite happy with it. It and its companion novella, Smoke and Ash, will definitely be the last stories to be re-released. I have no idea when that will be. Probably when I've spent all my tears and pulled out all my hair.

Now for some good news! I am putting out a collection of my erotic short stories and novellas, some of which have been published before and some of which are totally new to readers. My target for release is mid-April. It all depends on coding, finding the right distribution platform for me, etc.

Check out the blurb and the cover, which was gorgeously rendered by Romanced by the Cover.

From the past to the future, from hotel rooms to hospitals to homes, passion can bloom anywhere. In this collection of previously released and brand-new stories, Suleikha Snyder describes the many permutations of love, of ishq.

You have a thing for your hot boss. You can’t get your ex out of your head. You’re not supposed to be together. You are supposed to be together. He doesn’t remember you. You can’t forget her. She died. You die. Somehow, love and lust still find a way. 

These are the Ishq Factors.   

Huffing, Puffing, and Blowing the House Down

I recently found myself in conversation with an earnest film school graduate — the kind of hip, bearded, 20-something who thinks acknowledging his white privilege and his problematic faves is enough to balance out his praise of Quentin Tarantino and explain away why he still watches films by Roman Polanski and Woody Allen. He volunteers with Planned Parenthood, you see, so he’s not like those other white dudes — the ones that get huffy about movies like Get Out, which he’d just come from seeing.

Yeah, there was a lot to unpack in that chat we had. And he’d had at least four beers and three shots, which made him particularly mansplain-y. But one thing that really struck me was his insistence that Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs has one of the most shocking scenes ever put to film. This was a follow-up to my condemnation of Polanski and Allen and my insistence that I don’t have to give them my time or my money. He turned to the responsibility of creatives within the confines of storytelling. Wasn’t depicting problematic things onscreen just as bad as actual abuse? Needless to say, I tried my best to set him straight on that count. (Mystery writers don’t actually kill people, remember?) But I keep coming back to what he said about Straw Dogs.

Schooleikha's in Session — Catch Up On My Videos!

Did you know I have a YouTube channel now? I'm kind of bad at announcing these things, but, yes, you can actually WATCH me rant about things.

I've started a video series called Schooleikha's in Session, talking about diversity from a craft perspective. So far there are only three clips, but I will happily make more — especially if you leave me questions in the comments of this post! I'm happy to tackle anything related to writing and social media branding.

For now, check out these three videos about writing diversely!

THE WHY:

HOW TO:

THE WHO (not the rock group):

Kerfuffles, TARDISes and Empty Seats

I recently got into the strangest fracas on Twitter about racism in publishing...where some diversity naysayers asked if I'd read conservative books (because, clearly, I'm biased against such things) and wondered who my favorite Supreme Court Justice is. Frankly, I have no idea what the latter has to do with publishing (it's Ruth Bader Ginsburg, because DUH), but the former is a more troubling query. Because, let's face it, given the literary canon according to schools and colleges, most of what we read is by right-leaning white authors. If anything, I'm making up for not reading lefties and social progressives for 22 years!

So, yeah, that was weird. Also weird was this idea that talking about the disparity in publishing means painting white people as racists. Because, as always, being called a racist is the terrible part. Not the inequality in the system. And it's such a clever, kneejerk-emotional way to distract from the actual topic. It centers the conversation back on white cishet folks instead of the work that still needs to be done to include everyone.

But here's what I really don't get about these perpetual kerfuffles: why asking people to read more is a bad thing. As I said on Twitter, so many people act like being told to diversify your reading is limiting. No, dude, it just means more awesome books. The capacity to devour stories is infinite. It's like a TARDIS. There's plenty of room in there. You can read dead white guys, living white ladies, and POC. That's all that's being said. I mean, I love to read. I've been binge-reading to shut out the world, and I flow from one text to the next. Paul Tremblay to Sonali Dev to Sherry Thomas to Sabaa Tahir to Amanda Bouchet. It's "and" not "instead of."

No one is forcing medicine down your throat. Like I've said many times before, POC aren't kale. We're not some new health trend. We've always been here. The Mahabharata is estimated to date back to the 8th or 9th Century BCE. The Epic of Gilgamesh is dated around 2100 BCE. I could go on. But, basically, POC were spinning stories while paler folks were still scribbling in the dirt. So don't pretend you were here first. You just built the modern stadium, the modern playing field, and then put us in the parking lot...not realizing that there's plenty of room in that stadium. Tons of seats left to fill.

Am I mixing my metaphors? I might be mixing my metaphors.

Stop being weird, people. Just read more goddamn books.

     

A Whole Lotta Words on Doing Things By Halves

Romance author and Washington Post columnist Sarah MacLean put out a call on Twitter earlier today, asking for India-set historicals featuring heroes and heroines of color. Maybe it's because I kind of understand Sarah-speak by now, or because I have a lot of hope, but I automatically assumed she was asking about stories by authors of South Asian origin writing about South Asian people. The answers that came back were all recs for books by white women...and at least four white authors volunteered that they're writing stories with half-Indian characters.

Sophia Duleep Singh, actual biracial person and
 suffragette, in 1910

White authors are writing historical romances with half-Indian characters, and all I can ask is "Why?" Because you care about the biracial and marginalized experience at the time or because you think it's sexy and the right touch of angst? If it's the latter...I thought we were past that two decades ago, aside from a few authors here and there who still love to drop in a half-Indian peer. If you claim it's the former...show me the receipts. I would love to see a fictionalized take on Sophia Duleep Singh. Or Merle Oberon (yes, I know Michael Korda already did that). But I know that the reality of romance writing is much different. What we're told and what we actually get are often seas apart.

And, let's be honest, why isn't the character 100 percent Indian? Is there something wrong with that? Will it completely change your story? Or is the half-Indianness just a tool, an easy source of conflict? A dash of spice? Biracial people, whether they're on the page or picking up the book, deserve FAR better than that.

With diversity and inclusivity very much part of the romance publishing conversation, I really question intent. Is this about being cool and trendy? Are you trying to jump on a bandwagon? Because I've talked about that. So MANY of us have talked about that. We're not this hot new thing. And we're not demanding diverse characters from everybody. You seriously don't have to include POC...especially if you're going to half-ass it. Because another part of the conversation we're having is about harm. Is your portrayal going to cause someone pain?

Why POC Aren't Kale And We'd Rather Have Wine Than Your Tears

I'd like to talk about what constitutes kindness and bravery, and what any of it has to do with writing romance. But there is so much, so many different threads, that I'm not sure how to pull them together — especially without citing hundreds of years of racial disparity, colonialism, colorism, segregation, privilege, etc. It's a lot.

You can read some brilliant thoughts on what's going on in Romancelandia right now — what HAS been going on for decades — by Courtney Milan, Melissa Blue, and Zoraida Córdova.

Now here are some of my thoughts.  

Yet Another Drinking During RWA-in-NYC Post!

So, you're headed to the Romance Writers of America conference next week in the heart of New York City's Times Square. Yes, yes, it's for professional networking and improvement and bonding with your peers...but let's get real: 2500 romance writers in one spot means at least 2000 women who need to wet their whistle! As a season whistle-wetter and 11-year resident of the Big Apple, let me suggest a few places near the Marriott Marquis Hotel where you can let your hair down and say, "Bottoms up!"

1. Bourbon Street Bar & Grille. (346 W. 46th Street, between 8th and 9th Ave) Yes, I'm suggesting a NOLA-themed bar for while you're in New York. Because I am just that perverse. Bourbon Street is a huge space with Southern-inspired dishes and Southern cocktails. Hurricanes, Abita beer, gator sausage...let those good times roll! Bonus? It's on Hell's Kitchen's "Restaurant Row," where you will find a slew of prix fixe restaurants just rarin' to nab the pre-theater crowd.

2. Gossip. (733 9th Avenue) A standard pub with a great interior, not-so standard bar bites (the appetizers really are tasty!), and Happy Hour from 4-7 Monday-Thursday.

3. Deacon Brodie's. (370 W. 46th Street, closer to 9th Ave) Dive, dive, dive! This Scottish bar no longer features my two favorite accent-y bartenders, but it DOES have a ton of whiskey, bourbon and cheap cocktails. If you want a slice of no-frills, hometown dive bar in the middle of NYC, this is the place to go. They don't have a kitchen, but they will let you order food to the bar or bring stuff in from outside.  

I Am Your Lord and Master Beta

I was recently reading some of the reviews for Opening Act (breaking Rule No. 1 of Authordom, I know) when I stumbled across someone calling the hero a “clueless idiot.” I wasn’t mad. I really couldn’t be mad. In fact, I cracked up laughing! You know why? Because he is a clueless idiot. Alpha heroes who are completely confident of their abilities to woo and win fair ladies are all well and good, but sometimes you’ve just got to write a beta hero…and, not only that, but a a doofus-y, has-no-idea-what’s-in-front-of-him beta hero. Adam Harper, 25-year-old blue-collar bartender and bass player certainly fits that bill.

Le Sheikh C'est Chic? Not So Much!

Valentino and Agnes Ayres, The Sheik

Rudolph Valentino played The Sheik in 1921, based on a 1919 novel by Edith Maude Hull. Almost one hundred years later, swarthy men in flowing robes are still wooing the ladies and bending them to their lusty will in the pages of Harlequin and Mills & Boon category romances. Whodathunkit? As much a sexy captivity narrative as the noble savage Native American romances that authors like Cassie Edwards made bank on, sheikh romances have prevailed where other outdated, racist, colonial tropes have died. Neither rain nor snow nor 9/11 nor the Iraq war have killed this plot. Why?

Why aren’t sheikh romances tagged and shelved as interracial romances? Because, to a large extent, they aren’t. They are a white, largely Christian, woman’s fantasy as much as a sparkling vampire or an alphahole billionaire, largely written by and for that market. In essence, a sheikh is not real. Stripped of all true cultural markers — namely practicing Islam — pale on the book covers, bowled over by the first fiery western woman they see… this is the rhetoric. This is the narrative. And it serves only one audience — certainly not the pseudo-minority culture it portrays.

Multicultural Fiction Is Not a Monolith

As I follow publishing trends for both my day job and my budding career as a romance writer, I'm always fascinated by reader/reviewer/publisher response to genre fiction written by writers of color — primarily women of color, but men as well. Nowhere else, except perhaps in LGBT fiction, will you find that we are all judged together. Someone reads one bad book by an author of color and, all of a sudden, you don't know if you can read another one. Or, one book by an author of color didn't hit, so we're not going to publish someone else.

Did that happen with Fifty Shades of Grey? No. With the plethora of lackluster New Adult novels that followed Easy? The motorcycle club books that hit the shelves after Kristen Ashley hit it big? I can't recall seeing people fear that the next book might suck. No, if anything, the subsequent titles were snapped up like Chex Mix at a Super Bowl party. And even if some titles are less than thrilling, people keep buying. Publishers keep publishing.

Lit From Within: Where Do South Asian Romance Writers Make a Name?

With a novella set to release in two months — my fourth India-set story, and the do-or-die of the Bollywood Confidential series before I move on to another subgenre — my mind is turned to marketing and promotion. I keep coming back to one question: Where does the South Asian romance writer go to find an audience, a support system, a foundation? (And, more importantly, a springboard to get our works Out There.) Do we look to our community, or to the romance community at large? Both are hard to break into, much less navigate.

Five Things I've Learned While Writing Romantic Suspense

This fall sees me making my first foray into romantic suspense (not counting fan fiction) and, boy, is it a whole different animal than contemporary and/or erotic romance! 

I hatched this crazy idea about a team of mercenaries who live fairly regular lives but get into shenanigans on the side. And, as I work on the first in this potential series, I can't default to navel-gaze-y, internal narratives to drive the story. Oh, noes!

What have I figured out so far...?

1. External conflict is hard to do well, yo.

2. Sexytimes in the middle of impending doom is a gun you can only fire once.

3. When you make up military/government thingies and talk about weaponry, remember to RESEARCH if it's actually possible. But later. Not when you're in the flow.  

4. No, seriously, they can't have sex and talk about their feelings all the time. I mean it. 

5. When in doubt, blow something up.

You'll have to wait a while to find out how I've applied my learnings but, in the mean time, you can check out "Matinee," my short story in the erotic anthology The Big Book of Orgasms, and pre-order my contemporary novella, Bollywood and the Beast!

Five Things Soaps Can Teach You About Writing

As a lifelong TV junkie and erstwhile entertainment journalist, I’ve often joked I have the “superpower” of being able to sense where a story is going. (Friends have tested this theory. Exhibit A: the pilot for The LA Complex.) That’s because even when a show is throwing in every twist imaginable, crafting unreliable narrators and casting new roles, there is a narrative flow. It’s called a story arc for a reason. There are always clues and flags—and subtle signs that sometimes even a writer doesn’t pick up on—which hint at the trajectory of a given plot. And, often, a regular soap opera viewer (or regular reader!) is eagle-eyed when it comes to spotting missteps and deviations from the natural direction. Most of what I've learned about writing a riveting tale, or enjoying one as a consumer, I gleaned from being addicted to daytime soaps!

Kicking the Heroine Addiction

I recently had a note about one of my female leads not engaging in “heroine-like” behavior. It’s a common thing that comes up in Romancelandia, from editors and reviewers alike: Your heroine’s not acting like a heroine, your hero’s not acting like a hero. How much are we, as writers and readers, hamstrung by those words and their meanings? “Heroine.” “Hero.” At the core, they imply courage, nobility, feats that are somehow more than human. And I don’t know about anybody else, but I tend to write about guys that are clueless doofuses and gals who are, at best, a hot mess. They’re not noble, they’re not brave and you’re not supposed to look up to them. You might not even like them. They’re just people. They’re flawed, and it’s strange to have them held up to a higher standard just because they’re trying to navigate the pitfalls of love.

Split Ends: Two Identities, One Pain!

Sarah Michelle Gellar pulled double duty, too!

When I first began my pursuit of romance publishing, I was determined to keep the "real" me and Suleikha Snyder completely apart. It was a grandiose idea of separate lives and secret identities -- I crafted a story for myself, just as I would for a character. My stuffed animals became real cats, my unrequited crush turned into an on-and-off boyfriend, etc. Suleikha lived in Manhattan, Suleikha was political, Suleikha did vaguely pretentious interviews with Yahoo! blogs...and it lasted barely a year before it became too much.

How could I craft an effective author brand when "real" me, a longtime writer and editor, already had an established identity both online and off? I'm a crazy, mouthy, live tweeter of TV shows who lives in Queens, loves babies and seems to always get stuck on the subway with mariachis. I worked hard for that recognition. (Okay, I didn't have to work for the mariachi part...that happened all on its own.) There are plenty of people who have pseudonyms and who have crafted multiple authorial identities effectively. I am not one of them. Building Suleikha from the ground up, in nearly one-tenth the time it took to craft my primary voice, was proving impossible for me! Plus, it was just stressing me out. I'm an open book...you can't sit next to me at a restaurant without learning way too much about me. Pretending Suleikha was a different person -- or, at least, a part of me that lived in a different room in my head -- was starting to chip away at my soul. It was like having a dirty little secret when all I wanted to do was shout from the rooftops, "Yay, I'm published!"

The Next Big Thing

I got tagged by Ms. Kwana "K.M." Jackson to answer this set of questions that's making the blog rounds with authors. What's my "next big thing"? Hopefully the sequel to Spice and Smoke, Spice and Secrets, which comes out from Samhain Publishing this November!

What is the working title of your book?

Spice and Secrets.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Well, it kind of naturally fed from the previous one. But, besides that, I've always been fascinated by Hindi-language cinema and the whole splashy world of Bollywood. I'm also a huge episodic television — soaps in particular — fan. So, I kind of put it all in a blender and poured it into a pepper-rimmed glass!

What genre does your book fall under?

Contemporary Romance and Multicultural/Interracial Romance.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

If this were a film, I'd cast Indian soap star Barun Sobti as Rahul Anand and Bollywood actresses Anushka Sharma and Shenaz Treasuryvala as Priya Roy and Sunny Khanna. Philip Winchester (Strikeback, Camelot) would play Shaw.