Genre Talk Presents: Through My Lens with Lloyd A. Meeker

Through My Lens: A quarterly blog for Genre Talk
Lloyd A. Meeker

— Through My Lens is just that – a glimpse of my thoughts, questions and opinions about writing craft issues, conditioned by my idiosyncratic worldview, my tastes, my perspective, my sensibilities. You’re in no way obliged to agree with me. In fact, I’m very interested to hear other perspectives. I welcome any comments that stimulate civil discourse.

Trust Me, I’m a Professional

I set out to focus this post on elements in the contract between an author and a reader, but it’s turned out also to be about alpha-omega shifters and world-building. I’ll get to the contract part eventually, I promise. Trust me, I’m a professional. Heh heh.

First, full disclosure: I like shifter stories. I like them a lot. I like them for what I want them to be a little more than for what they usually are, especially in world-building, but still I read them often. The good ones are fascinating, and the not-so-good ones (whether badly written or simply because the tropes of the genre become a trap, a hall of mirrors from which the author never escapes) can be entertaining.

So yes, I like alpha-omega stories. I’m not put off by mpreg, although I won’t finish stories in which the omega’s only role is to bear the alpha’s young, since the idea that anybody’s only role – male or female – is to bear offspring is repugnant to me. Margaret Atwood speaks for me on that.

Instead, I’ve been more puzzled than offended by mpreg, assuming there had to be a reason for it. I’ve come to the conclusion it may simply be a convenient device to keep the edict of monogamy intact while having a male-male couple produce a genetic “family.”

If the offspring’s genetic makeup isn’t crucial to the story, it seems to me there could be any number of pack females proud to bear an alpha’s offspring as surrogates – if that was all there was to it. But then you run into the problems of monogamy, couple-hood, and the genetic family unit as defined by a basically heteronormative suburban North American frame. Never mind that gay men frequently adopt, and sometimes employ a surrogate. Of course, there would have to be another reason for the alpha and omega to mate, then, absent the requirement to bear young together. Like love. So many possibilities. It’s all about the world-building choices.

Built into the pack shifter paradigm is the potential for what I’d call a tribal belonging, with symbiotic tribal roles. Of course, alpha and omega roles hold the potential for such a symbiotic relationship all on their own, but even their relationship rarely gets developed past the sexual/emotional dynamic. Occasionally the omega is a healer or an intuitive. I would love to see that employed more often, even if it becomes an over-used trope.

I love the inherent question of purpose for a pack. For example, Mary Calmes wrote a terrific series where the pack purpose was to create and maintain a sanctuary for diverse beings. That one piece of world-building added a lot of power and meaning to the stories and generated a very satisfying line of continuity to the series.

Sure, the pack creates a certain kind of purpose just by reason of its existence. Usually there are joint ventures in business or other activity, but again I haven’t seen much beyond very general reference to “businesses” as a source of income. But if you were to exchange “shifter pack” with “tiny country” you get pretty much the same basic set of story drivers: aggressive neighbors encroaching on borders, struggling economy, rogue agents and disruptive strangers or immigrants, persecution from “outside,” internal plots against the throne, and other interchangeable components in the 10-piece wrench-set of shifter-world problems.

Still, my hope of finding new dimensions in shifter stories burns undimmed. And so I keep buying them. Which means I sometimes end up wading through Alpha Growls Possessively at his Insecure but Feisty Omega — a shifter romance, Book One (of 23) in the Growling Alphas of Smoky Ridge series.

So finally, here’s the reason for this long hike through the forests of Smoky Ridge. I bought two alpha-omega shifter books the other day. One of them was 70 pages, and cost me 2.99. The title and cover were unconvincing, but the blurb was kind of cute. It’s book one of a series:

Whenever massively-muscular-and-gorgeous-alpha walks into the diner where adorable-omega-with-self-esteem-lower-than-a-snake’s-ankle works, said omega becomes so agitated he creates loud and embarrassing kitchen disasters. Check.

Massively-muscular-alpha comes to the diner daily. He sits where he can watch adorable-omega flailing haplessly in the kitchen. Check.

One day massively-muscular-alpha slides into his usual booth, wearing his usual tight dark t-shirt, worn jeans and steal-toed boots. Hideous record scratch. Say what?

Yes. Steal-toed boots. On page two. Is there any legitimate excuse for that? No, no, and no. There’s doubtless an explanation, but no possible excuse.

Massively-muscular-alpha has lots of tattoos poking out from under his t-shirt. They’re never described, and I think not mentioned again at all, even when he’s naked, so the tattoos are just a passing short-hand signal that the alpha is a badass. As if an alpha might not have adequate badass creds. Adorable-omega, “who’s fear of needles…” (also page two) would make him pass out in a tattoo parlor, has none.

I paid 2.99 for this and by god I’m going to finish it. It’s only 70 pages, after all. Unfortunately, the parade of outrageous anti-story horrors continues.

By the time I get to a sex scene, where the alpha “lathes” the omega’s nipple with his tongue, I’m laughing out loud. It takes a very special kink for someone to think getting their nipples lathed would be fun, or in any way erotic. Nipple reduction, anyone?

Call me a curmudgeon, but I can’t take an author seriously if they don’t know the difference between “lathed” and “laved” but can’t be bothered to look it up. Those aren’t just mistakes. They are proof of professional incompetence. A professional author can be awful at spelling and grammar. No problem. The professional author gets professional editing help.

Moving on. Through torturously contrived paint-by-numbers misunderstandings, prolonged by perfectly timed interruptions, halting half-truths and his own profound resistance to the painfully obvious, adorable-omega fails to understand he’s massively-muscular-alpha’s mate (even after a mating-sex bite!) until almost the end of the story. That I paid 2.99 for. I can buy a full-length novel for 2.99 and get a far more original and much better-written story.

Which leads me out of the woods into the territory of the author-reader contract. There are solemn promises an author makes in their contract with the reader when they deliver a story in exchange for money.

An author offers genre promises in the contract. The title didn’t indicate shifter romance, and the cover art sent mixed signals, but the blurb made it clear this was a shifter romance, and the HEA arrived right on schedule. That promise was fulfilled.

An author raises story questions, and promises to answer them. I learned who the MCs were on page one. That worked, although it became clear early on that’s about all I was going to get. The external conflict, signaled early and with a heavy hand, was so unbelievable as to be cringe-worthy.

So after all the genre promises, and the story questions/promises (as in, if you hang a gun on the wall in the first act, it must be used in the third), come the professional author promises.

A critical section in the professional author-reader contract is about quality of product. I place a lot of blame on Kindle Unlimited for eroding the issue of quality – a KU reader has no risk in a single author-reader contract, no investment in the quality of any particular story. If the reader doesn’t like one story it’s no big deal – they stop at page 2 or 10 or 50 and move on to the next one without losing a dime.

Quality loses its significance in the avalanche of an endless TBR pile. But for an author, the platform shouldn’t matter. For a professional author, story quality should be a matter of professional discipline and self-respect.

By reason of my purchase I was promised a professional-quality story, and I didn’t get it. Instead I was kicked in the eyes with steal-toed boots. The antagonist was a ridiculous caricature, never posing a credible threat to anybody. The character arc for both MCs was pretty much a flat line.

To be blunt, there wasn’t a real story in this story. (And I refuse to let my nipples be lathed, even by a gorgeous massively-muscular-alpha-with-tattoos. Although I admit I thought about it for a second or two, wondering what that alpha’s tongue felt like.)

There are so many ways an author can sabotage himself. Heck, a whole brand can go down in flames as fast as you can say Faleena Hopkins. But unprofessional behavior aside, much of a professional author’s reputation ought to rest on the quality of their work. I say it does, regardless of sales numbers.

This is really simple: the professional author promises to deliver a professional-quality story. When I first consider a book for sale, I hear the author whisper in my ear, “Trust me, I’m a professional.” I’m prepared to take them at their word. Once.

Other readers will have different criteria for making their reading choices, of course. No problem. But for better or worse, I value competence. Very highly. I’ve started a list now, with names of authors who fail to deliver at this foundational level of the author-reader contract. There are too many other professional authors’ books I’d rather buy and read, with too little time in which to read them.

About the Author

I’m a mystic, writer, healer, lover, cancer survivor, father, friend. I write (mostly) gay fiction featuring all those paths and more.

Having led what can only be described as a checkered life, I can honestly say I’m grateful for all of it. I’ve been a minister, an office worker, a janitor, a drinker, and a software developer on my way to finishing my first novel in 2004.

But basically I’m just a weather-worn psychic empath still learning how to live in the world just the way it is. The thing is, I experience the world as so much more than is generally accepted. That’s the challenge. Writing stories is the best way I’ve found to examine and share the questions, the wonders I engage daily.

My husband and I have been together since 2002, married since 2007. Between us we have four children and five grandchildren. We’re based in south Florida, and work hard to keep up with the astonishing life we’ve created for ourselves.

Where to Find Lloyd: Website

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