This is the question I have to ask myself when I put something into a story that may or may not add to the flow. Sometimes I believe it does and I edit it out. Other times, I believe it adds to character development, whether individually or in a group dynamic sort of way.
For instance, a group of people, like my characters in the Dolly Games series of stories, work closely together and it's very likely that in a mixed-sex group, that one or another of them may be sexually attracted to another. To show how they can continue to work together while their sexual attraction either works for or against them, I let the story flow around them; like a stream around a stone. The stone presents no real obstacle and even adds to the general 'scenery'.
And if one of the characters is prone to sexual behavior that is 'out of the norm'? So what? Life is filled with a lot of people and they're not all alike. Think of the cop you may see picking up a quick breakfast at a local diner every morning; do you know for certain that he doesn't wear a 'hair-shirt' in his private life? Or, the woman who cuts your hair; is it possible that she may have been a groupie back in the 70s? Or, she may have even sang backup for a popular group. That life is behind her and she doesn't talk about it; her children and grandchildren fill her life now.
By mentioning such things in the stories I write, I add a little color to the story and give the characters a depth they might not have had otherwise. In showing how they deal with the different compartments of their lives, I'm showing how people the world over are able to put such things away, or take them up at will.
Another instance is the silent, unassuming man or woman in their 80s or 90s who may have been a paratrooper during WWII and dropped into Normandy the night before D-Day. Or, the woman may have been an Army nurse in the Phillipines and spent several years interned in a POW camp by the Japanese. They don't talk about it because it was something they had to live through in a private way that they may feel is nobody else's business. But by creating such a character, and showing them initially as a relatively innoucuous character, then revealing this hidden depth at a critical moment, I am adding color to the story.
Since people come in all varieties, there will be hookers, party-girls, unsuspected heroes, vulnerable middle-aged men and women and people who have never had an opportunity to make a difference mixed into my stories. I don't write 'everyman' stories, I write stories that include 'everymen' and 'everywomen' as supporting characters. Sure, my lead characters seem to have something special about them; sometimes to their detriment, but if the reader digs deep enough, they will find that my characters aren't so special after all. They're just people, doing what they need to do to live their lives in something more than simple survival.
That brings me back to whether or not something detracts from a story. I've wondered often if the sexual escapades of my characters detract from the stories I write, and I'm beginning to think that they don't. I try not to let them, anyway. Few of my readers have mentioned any such detraction and since I try to let the story flow naturally with the inclusion of sex lives for the characters; I guess I've succeeded. Oh, yes, one amateur reviewer once openly wondered about my mental health, but in doing so, he put the focus of the review on himself. Did he ever watch any of the critically acclaimed movies of the 60s and 70s? Apparently not. Incidentally, the book that he savaged sells very well and did not do so until after he posted his review. To that naive, fussy, sexually repressed reviewer, I say; thank you.
So, to sum up; a writer must view his work objectively and decide for himself if he is 'killing' the mood in his story and making his readers want to throw up their hands in frustration at being taken down the garden path when they really want to get on with the story. I try to show interpersonal dynamics in my ensemble of characters and keep the readers' interest in them. I mean, the story is important, or each book would simply be a string of loosely connected occurrences. But if the reader doesn't care about the characters, then what is going to keep their interest? Without characters the reader wants to know about, a writer may as well be writing procedure manuals.
Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of Dolly Games, Laying Ghosts, Gulf of the Plains and others.
