Alicia Rasley is a nationally known workshop leader, award-winning author, and small-press editor. She edits novellas and stories for Red Sage-- http://www.eredsage.com/
She lives in Indianapolis and teaches writing at three state universities. Her website, www.rasley.com, has hundreds of pages of free writing advice. Her book, The Power of Point of View, was released by Writer's Digest Books in March. Her editorial blog with Red Sage managing editor Theresa Stevens is http://edittorrent.blogspot.com/.
As an editor, what types of stories are you looking for at this time?
As a press, Red Sage is looking for lots of stories (5K to 20K) for the website. We are always looking for novellas (30K is optimum word count), of course, for the Secrets print anthology, but that's a tougher sell -- has to "feel" like a Secrets story. We publish very, very few novels, and so far only by those who have already sold to us, so start with the shorter lengths if you want to sell to us. Now we're looking for highly erotic stories (but not gross), and we're open to innovation, so if you have something fun, submit! The website option allows for more adventurous alternatives. If it's well-written and intriguing and sexy, we'd like to see it.
As for me, I'm always looking for shorter, sexy stories, but ones which are romantic as well as erotic-- I do like a love story! I like an erotic premise which presents an intriguing situation that opens up to a plot which shows how love and sex can transform. Our readers do seem to prefer stories with a male and a female (I started to say "a man and a woman," but what about the shapeshifters, huh?), but that doesn't mean JUST one and one. Combinations of two and one can be fun too.
I expect clean, polished manuscripts with proper punctuation, and I've stopped apologizing for that-- what do you expect from an editor and English teacher? If you're not great mechanically, have a friend who is help you edit before you submit to me or any other editor.
Oh, you asked about types of stories! Genre doesn't much matter to Red Sage-- we publish historical, romantic comedy, paranormal, suspense, you name it. We don't do much first-person (or any, to date, as far as I recall). The external plot should never overshadow the romantic/erotic plot; that's why I suggest focusing on an erotic premise, like "this is a romantic comedy where the artist heroine needs a nude female model for her mural about goddesses, and the agency sends a male model instead." (I just made the up as an illustration of a funny-potential erotic premise... I'm not actually asking for that as a story. :) But if you send me a query that highlights only the big mystery plot or the heroine's attempts to escape a druglord ex-husband, I'm going to be wondering why you submitted to an erotica press. Let us know what makes this erotica. If you get that right, we like all sorts of plots.
What have you seen too much of lately, if anything?
After saying how much I like erotic premises, I should say that I don't like stories that are too plainly "just about sex". I'm speaking particularly of stories where the heroine goes to a sex club and gets all dominated and learns how to let go of control.... yawn. This is FICTION, not a fantasy submitted to Penthouse Letters. The story should be a story, that is, with the erotic experience taking place within a story. If your heroine needs to learn how to let go of control, put her in a plot that challenges that (The African Queen comes to mind). Use some story metaphor, for goodness sake, some fictional filter between the characters and your authorial intentions. I actually just got a submission-- don't want to spoil here-- but it takes place in a bondage community, but she's not there to wear a dog collar (nota bene, I think dog collars belong on dogs, not on heroines in books I edit :) but to accomplish something else (again, I don't want to spoil it-- she has a suspense-type goal). That is, there's the erotic premise, the colony, but the plot is far more than just the heroine doing sex-club things. That's good!
So what I've seen too much of is-- the merely-erotica, which I tend to call "a boink-fest", without a plot; and alternately, the story that is really just a suspense or just an historical with a few somewhat hotter sex scenes thrown in there-- the not-erotica. Good erotic romance should combine an erotic premise and "feel" with a romance and an external plot... and in not too many pages. Hard to accomplish, but you can do it.
What is your favorite part of being an editor?
I like seeing the great variety of ideas writers come up with. Even if I can't acquire a story, I'm often impressed with the author's imagination.
I also like lecturing people about punctuation and knowing that they are trying to pay attention. (My college students, alas, seldom do. :)
I especially like brainstorming new ideas with our current authors. Once you're a Red Sage author, we're more willing to take a chance on intriguing plots and edgy characters.
I believe you are an author as well-does this help you in your day to day dealings with authors?
Well, I know what makes most authors break out in hives. So I'll say right now: I do read your synopsis, and if it reveals a plot that just won't work for us, I'll probably reject on that basis. But I make my decision to ask for more based entirely on the first ten pages you send with the proposal. So don't sweat the synopsis for me anyway. I might think, "That was the worst synopsis this month," but I will still ask for a complete if I read that first chapter and like your voice and the way the story opens. (As a writer, I can't forget that an editor actually told me my synopsis was the worst she'd ever seen-- hey, really, it wasn't THAT bad-- but she bought the book anyway. The synopsis mostly serves to weed out clearly innappropriate stories, and if your story is within the editorial guidelines, I'm going to read on.)
What do you read for pleasure? Name three of your all time favorite books or authors.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips-- Nobody does it better. She's like one of those gymasts at the Olympics. I'm always sure she's gone too far and she's going to fall off that balance beam, but she thrills me every time.
Laura Kinsale-- Flowers from the Storm is the greatest romance novel of the 20th Century.
Patrick O'Brian-- He's a writer's writer. In his 20-book long sea adventure series, he does amazing things I think only other writers will think are amazing. His dialogue is terrifying, it's so good.
Tell us about a few titles you have coming out you are excited about.
I
'm just going to mention a few I've been editing recently. Check these out if you want to see what I'm buying right now:
'm just going to mention a few I've been editing recently. Check these out if you want to see what I'm buying right now:
I'm just starting to edit Calista Fox's Christmas story. She's one of our most popular authors, and this is a particularly touching story about the power of Christmas and love.
Another RS author with a new story is Dominique Sinclair, whose Edge is going to be in the print Secrets anthology next year. This story has Dominique's trademark biting-nails action and suspense, and a most adventurous pair of protagonists, not to mention a pair of handcuffs. He's an agent sent to bring her back... that's where the handcuffs come in! Really. Stop thinking dirty thoughts. (Leave that up to them. :)
I just finished editing The Merry Widow, but Koko Brown, a new-to-us author. It's a historical with a businesswoman heroine and a sexy hero who is worth every penny he commands. :)
Also Kellen's Conquest. I just got this one a couple weeks ago. This manuscript won our Alpha Hero contest, so if you like the alpha guys, watch for this. :)
Megan's Choice is a story where the reader gets to decide the heroine's erotic progress, like menage or not? (I can just bet what gets chosen most there. :) The format is based on those Choose Your Own Adventure stories you might remember from middle school, where at the end of a scene, you choose what the heroine does. This is made for the internet, as you can imagine, and with a space-pilot heroine and an exotic setting, the story really makes use of that futuristic aspect.
If you like the royal guys, as I do, Captured by Dara Edmondsen features a handsome prince-- a real one, not the former-frog type-- as a hero, and a heroine who wants to be the only woman who doesn't succumb to his royal command.
Payback is another story with my kind of hero. I like the felons. Yeah, princes and felons. Odd kinks, huh? This guy is just so rogue-ish. Love that.
Oh, and Secret Confessions. This is another linked story-- three segments. And it's just made for us writers. The Regency-era heroine has been keeping a journal... of her romantic encounters. So she's actually one of us... an erotica writer! It's all very private, until the journal is stolen....
thanks so much for taking the time to speak with us!!!
brynn
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