Not Choosing is Still a Choice @authordora

Today my guest struggles with the same dilemma I do. Genres. 

But to solve the problem this talented author writes under several different pseudonyms preventing reader genre confusion. 

Please Welcome S. Dora / R.A. Padmos / Ella Laurance... 

Not choosing is still a choice

In real life I’m not exactly what you would call an adventurous woman. My world is small, and I prefer it that way. My hunger for the new and exciting has always been near to non-existent. Does it surprise anyone that I’ve been with the same woman since 1981? I thought not.

So why don’t I, as a writer, pick a genre and stick to it? Just to be on the safe side, you know. It’s simple, really. Allow me to explain. A character pops up in my head, because with me it always starts with a character. That character wants something, has a conflict that needs taking care of, something good or bad happens, anything to get the story going.

But, what does it matter if the main character is a Dutch jobless father of four during the Great Depression, discovering he’s in love with another man, or a billionaire’s wife wanting a sex-filled weekend with her husband and her husband’s personal assistant?

Does anyone seriously think that once I’ve written a sex, sex and more sex m/f/m story, I can’t possibly have the brains or talent to write a psychological study of a man almost frozen in fear and self-hatred? Or looking at it from the other direction, that once I’ve written a serious historically novel about a gay man, by definition I lost all appetite for writing about an independent straight woman with an outspoken taste in sex?

That once I’ve written a novel about a professional football (soccer) player and his lover living with the life changing consequences of anti-gay violence, I can’t write a novella about a single man having lots of kinky sex with a sweet m/m couple and nothing bad happens to any of them? 

As a writer, do I have to choose between BDSM and vanilla? Between male and female? Between straight and gay? Between psychological depth and one-handed-reading? Between well-researched history and silly fun? Between cheap smut and kind of, sort of, almost literature?

If characters look promising, I’ll give their story a chance, no matter if he’s a reluctant Dominant or she’s a freethinking lover of art and men. As for my other considerations…  what other considerations? 

I understand books need to be sold and thus readers need to be able to find out what’s what, and for that reason I use three different names. R.A. Padmos is for my more serious m/m work, S. Dora for my m/m romantic erotica and Ella Laurance for my m/f romantic erotica.  It hopefully prevents confused and disappointed readers, although I have discovered it creates some problems all of their own. (Try doing promotion for three writers, especially when you’re all three, and all three of you are equally introverted)

If you’re curious about my work, you can find links on my blogs:

Ella Laurance  http://ellalaurance.wordpress.com/

S. Dora  http://sdora.wordpress.com/
R.A. Padmos  http://rapadmos.wordpress.com/  

(To purchase any of these books, click on the book image)