I believe all writers face this problem at one time or another, and erotica writers are at particular risk. Your characters represent your experiences and fantasies - and sometimes are very close to people you know quite well or only in passing. Filling in the details - even fictional ones - can make things interesting in your personal life.
The reaction for me has varied a lot. On one hand, I have several friends who are super excited to make a cameo or appear as a main character. Alice was highly amused, and gets a good laugh out of her "story sister." Helene loved her role in "The Lioness" - being in a book was something she really enjoyed.
On the other hand, Angel has always felt dubious about both her depiction and her presence in stories. It's a little too close to home and real. Natalya was originally the counterplay to that - Angel as she wished she were in real life. But Natalya was always a disguise and costume Angel could put on, and she knows that in order for Natalya to come to life I had to both fictionalize and aggregate other experiences into those stories.
But those are just the initial emotional reactions. Some stuff is really delicate. When the Jenny stories were originally written, exposing the fact that she was married with kids was a non-starter. While no one thinks a woman's sex drive ends once she is married, society as a whole tends to see open marriages and women pursuing extra marital pleasure as wrong. It's a dumb blanket judgment that fails to factor in the reality of marriage for most couples. But only in the last revisions and edits has it been safe to open the lid on this important element of Jenny's life. Along with that comes Holly's own flavor of extra-marital pursuits, and the fact that Tom fumbled along like all of us when he was first dealing with vivacious women like Jenny and Holly.
Emily is a similar situation. The original "Another Day" series was an exchange between Tom and Emily well after their "honeymoon" period. But to talk about how they started out was difficult. Emily's husband was her everything, and when he was deployed to Iraq she became a bit of an awkward ghost haunting familiar bars and restaurants. When he didn't come back, Emily was lost. They'd been high school sweethearts, and he loved her for all her quirks. She had never really learned how to date, how to pick up men, and yet she was so lonely. "Quiet Nights In NJ" was written long after "Another Day" and gave Emily a chance to open up about how she experienced first meeting and then adoring Tom. It was something we thought should be written because "Loving Helen" didn't make as much sense unless the reader knew about Emily's connection and how that fit with Helen's situation with her arranged marriage to Gurav, who is gay but was obliged to follow his family's wishes.
All of this is a bit high level though. I know the storylines and the characters. I know compromises that have been made. And I know where I've papered things up - because I run headlong into walls where I have to think, "Oh, can't say this because no one can know that."
Since I freestyle write a lot of content, it can be a very tricky editing process. Even moreso now that we're going back and improving all the early Very Dirty Stories volumes. Nothing like forgetting I avoided mentioning a very personal tattoo in several stories, and then realizing I added it in to another story elsewhere! *head desk*
How do you protect the innocent within your stories?
The reaction for me has varied a lot. On one hand, I have several friends who are super excited to make a cameo or appear as a main character. Alice was highly amused, and gets a good laugh out of her "story sister." Helene loved her role in "The Lioness" - being in a book was something she really enjoyed.
On the other hand, Angel has always felt dubious about both her depiction and her presence in stories. It's a little too close to home and real. Natalya was originally the counterplay to that - Angel as she wished she were in real life. But Natalya was always a disguise and costume Angel could put on, and she knows that in order for Natalya to come to life I had to both fictionalize and aggregate other experiences into those stories.
But those are just the initial emotional reactions. Some stuff is really delicate. When the Jenny stories were originally written, exposing the fact that she was married with kids was a non-starter. While no one thinks a woman's sex drive ends once she is married, society as a whole tends to see open marriages and women pursuing extra marital pleasure as wrong. It's a dumb blanket judgment that fails to factor in the reality of marriage for most couples. But only in the last revisions and edits has it been safe to open the lid on this important element of Jenny's life. Along with that comes Holly's own flavor of extra-marital pursuits, and the fact that Tom fumbled along like all of us when he was first dealing with vivacious women like Jenny and Holly.
Emily is a similar situation. The original "Another Day" series was an exchange between Tom and Emily well after their "honeymoon" period. But to talk about how they started out was difficult. Emily's husband was her everything, and when he was deployed to Iraq she became a bit of an awkward ghost haunting familiar bars and restaurants. When he didn't come back, Emily was lost. They'd been high school sweethearts, and he loved her for all her quirks. She had never really learned how to date, how to pick up men, and yet she was so lonely. "Quiet Nights In NJ" was written long after "Another Day" and gave Emily a chance to open up about how she experienced first meeting and then adoring Tom. It was something we thought should be written because "Loving Helen" didn't make as much sense unless the reader knew about Emily's connection and how that fit with Helen's situation with her arranged marriage to Gurav, who is gay but was obliged to follow his family's wishes.
All of this is a bit high level though. I know the storylines and the characters. I know compromises that have been made. And I know where I've papered things up - because I run headlong into walls where I have to think, "Oh, can't say this because no one can know that."
Since I freestyle write a lot of content, it can be a very tricky editing process. Even moreso now that we're going back and improving all the early Very Dirty Stories volumes. Nothing like forgetting I avoided mentioning a very personal tattoo in several stories, and then realizing I added it in to another story elsewhere! *head desk*
How do you protect the innocent within your stories?
Alice http://bit.ly/Ladies_Alice
Helene in "The Lioness" http://bit.ly/cCDD_TL
Angel http://bit.ly/Ladies_Angel
Natalya http://bit.ly/Ladies_Natalya
Jenny http://bit.ly/Ladies_Jenny
Andrea http://bit.ly/Ladies_Andrea