To Pee or Not to Pee
Every reader has their own pet peeves when it comes to books. You know what I mean -- those literary and stylistic conventions that make you grit your teeth when you read them. I’ve got a list that probably looks a lot like yours. In the top ten would be the obligatory “characters that are too stupid to live.” I also abhor the drop-dead gorgeous heroes and heroines who pretend not to know just how good-looking they are. Of course, I majorly roll my eyes at spunky female private-eye types who, ten or twelve books into a series, still haven’t figured out how to use a firearm.
However, most of these pet peeves pale before my very pettest of pet peeves…one that crosses all genres. Be it mystery or romance, thriller or horror, it seems you’ve always got folks wandering off to the bathroom to take steamy showers or perfumed bubble baths, with or without company. That, or they’re standing before the powder room mirror applying makeup to their cameo features or studying the manly bruises marring their rugged chin following a brawl.
But why do we never seem to see a character slip off to the potty to, well, use the potty?
Okay, I’m sure I’m exaggerating…somewhat. Admittedly, my data is subjective, and based on my formative years as a fledgling historical romance writer. As I devoured historical romance after historical romance as fodder for my own first novel, I couldn’t help but notice this particular lack. Maybe it was an unspoken rule from the publishers that characters didn’t tinkle?
And then I read a scene from one of Roberta Gellis’s novels which has stuck with me almost thirty years later. Not because it was exquisite prose (though I’m sure it was), but because her heroine casually used a chamber pot in front of her new lover! Ms. Gellis immediately became my writing idol, and I vowed right then that I’d put a potty scene in every one of my books. And so I have.
Peachy Scream, the second book in my Georgia B&B Mystery series (written as Anna Gerard), will be out in mass market paperback at the end of September. My innkeeper-turned-sleuth, Nina Fleet, plays host to a troupe of amateur actors in town for the annual Shakespeare festival. And, yep, I added my obligatory potty scene right there in the first chapter, with the troupe arriving from a road trip that did not include a bathroom break. Not only did this scene with everyone queuing up outside Nina’s downstairs washroom provide a bit of mild humor, it also gave me a chance to introduce new characters in an offbeat way.
I hope Roberta would have been proud.
A Georgia B&B Mystery, Book 2
In Peachy Scream, innkeeper-turned-sleuth Nina Fleet plays host to a troupe of amateur actors in town for the annual Shakespeare festival. Unfortunately for Nina, their director is her occasional nemesis, the dashing if unemployed actor Harry Westcott. Grandnephew of the B&B’s former owner, Harry still accuses Nina of stealing the place out from under him. But the pair are forced to set aside their differences when murder ensues during rehearsals for one of the Bard’s best-known works of betrayal, Hamlet.
Pre-order (on sale 9/26)
2 comments:
I love this! Thank you for sharing!
Thanks, Robyn. It's fun to look at the lighter side of writing sometimes. :)
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