Should I Have Faded to Black?
My mother read the sexy chapters in my book. She is less than happy. I s'pose I could end this particular blog right there; I mean, it's no big shock that a mother would have trouble with her daughter writing such a thing, right? But what really bothers me about it is that those few chapters seem to have skewed her overall view of the story. The message that I hoped to convey has been lost amidst her shock and horror at the admittedly graphic depictions. But it isn't only my mother's reactions that have me bothered. Most readers don't seem to mind those particular chapters one little bit, far from it, and yet I've become concerned that what they'll remember most when it's all said and done is the sex rather than the themes from the book that were my driving force to write it in the first place. And so I have to ask: was I wrong to include such descriptive scenes? Should I have faded to black? Did I sabotage my own message by distracting reader...