Over the years, I’ve been in car accidents, navigated through forests with a compass and a map, slept in houses built before Columbus sailed to America—I’ve even been airlifted off a mountain in Switzerland.
I have plenty of life experience upon which to draw for writing. However, the heroine of Remember Me presented me with a brand new challenge. You see, Lucy is a stripper. Well…not only have I not done that (and be thankful for that because I would probably fall off the stage or tell the first guy who tried to tuck something in my G-string what he could do with his fingers before I ripped them from his knuckles)but I had never even been in a strip club when I began the Lucy and Brandon’s story.
So…I turned to my friend the Internet. I researched laws regarding strip clubs for this particular geographic area, read as much as I could about salaries and pay. I watched videos on the Internet, including how-to videos for pole dancing—yes, they’re out there(yawn)—but I was still not quite comfortable with the results because I had not actually been to a strip club, and wasn’t sure I could accurately convey the atmosphere.
That’s where my ever helpful research assistant, my husband, came in. While his checkered past did include personal experience with strip clubs (gasp!), he was more than willing to make the sacrifice by accompanying me to one because God knows, I wasn’t going anywhere near one alone.
The experience was fascinating, and seeing the women actually performing gave me a whole new level of respect for the strength it takes to be truly good at the job. I also discovered that most of these women had other jobs outside of working at the club—quite a few working as fitness instructors of some sort.
In the end, I also learned that my research had been pretty solid. I tweaked a couple of things in my story in order to paint a more vivid word picture, but overall I’d done okay. Most of the strippers I talked to would be the first to tell you that the amount of money Lucy makes is way more than they bring home, but that’s the best part about writing fiction—all things are possible.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Remember Me -- How Can I Forget?
Over the years, I’ve been in car accidents, navigated through forests with a compass and a map, slept in houses built before Columbus sailed to America—I’ve even been airlifted off a mountain in Switzerland.
I have plenty of life experience upon which to draw for writing. However, the heroine of Remember Me presented me with a brand new challenge. You see, Lucy is a stripper. Well…not only have I not done that (and be thankful for that because I would probably fall off the stage or tell the first guy who tried to tuck something in my G-string what he could do with his fingers before I ripped them from his knuckles)but I had never even been in a strip club when I began the Lucy and Brandon’s story.
So…I turned to my friend the Internet. I researched laws regarding strip clubs for this particular geographic area, read as much as I could about salaries and pay. I watched videos on the Internet, including how-to videos for pole dancing—yes, they’re out there(yawn)—but I was still not quite comfortable with the results because I had not actually been to a strip club, and wasn’t sure I could accurately convey the atmosphere.
That’s where my ever helpful research assistant, my husband, came in. While his checkered past did include personal experience with strip clubs (gasp!), he was more than willing to make the sacrifice by accompanying me to one because God knows, I wasn’t going anywhere near one alone.
The experience was fascinating, and seeing the women actually performing gave me a whole new level of respect for the strength it takes to be truly good at the job. I also discovered that most of these women had other jobs outside of working at the club—quite a few working as fitness instructors of some sort.
In the end, I also learned that my research had been pretty solid. I tweaked a couple of things in my story in order to paint a more vivid word picture, but overall I’d done okay. Most of the strippers I talked to would be the first to tell you that the amount of money Lucy makes is way more than they bring home, but that’s the best part about writing fiction—all things are possible.
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