Romancing the Steamy Scene
I love a little romance in
the stories I read and in the movies I see. As explicit scenes have
become formulaic, they have also lost some of the romantic sweetness I
appreciate. When transferred to the big screen, the steamy scene feels
uncomfortably absurd.
When I lived in Santa Monica, California my
kids played with the kids of celebrities. We all wanted our kids to grow
up happy and feel loved. The business of Hollywood knows that it is
creating fiction, fantasy, and illusion. There, the violence and sex in
entertainment was part of “show business” and shrugged off as an
influence on teens. The insiders put the responsibility of the content
of the story on the people who watch it: “If a story sells with steamy
scenes, that’s what people want to see.”
As I read the Twilight
series, I was inspired to write the Starlet Series, taking on the
realities of first experiences and challenging Hollywood’s idea of love
and beauty. The teen characters in Starlet’s Man and Starlet’s Web are
part of the Hollywood culture that creates stories. But they are just as
confused about their identities as teens in the suburbs, especially
when celebrity parents take them to church or enroll them in religious
schools.
What if friends talked about their feelings and then
fumbled through their failed first romantic scene? What if the pressure
that our entertainment puts on our teens to have their own unrealistic
steamy scene makes them not know what to do when it is real for them?
Q. When did the ideas for the series come from?
A. When I lived in Santa Monica, I wondered what life would be like for my kids
if they attended Santa Monica High School as teens. The series is an exploration
of how teens would deal with the inherent contradictions from family values and
Hollywood messages.
Q. What is the hardest part of writing a book series?
A. I had trouble making the scenes real enough for teen readers. Hollywood
people talk in scripts and cuss constantly. Being sexy and young is in the
forefront of an actor’s or performer’s mind no matter what age. I wanted to
bring that reality to the page within the genre constraints. The dialogue can
sound odd because it does in real life. Any teen who wants to be a star should
understand the mentality that defines Hollywood culture.
Q. Is there a message in your books you hope readers learn?
A. Readers should take more
responsibility for the messages in stories. We should demand diverse characters
in skin color, body size, and religion.
Q. Are you working on any new writing projects? Can you tell
us a bit?
A. I’m finishing up the final book of the series, Starlet’s End. It has been a
long process. I originally set it in the state of Montana but the setting
failed. I’ve re-worked the setting to the San Francisco Bay area where I lived
before moving to Santa Monica, Ca.
Q. Is there anything you would have changed about the
series?
A. I wish I released Starlet’s Man first instead of releasing Liana Marie’s
memoirs. Prior to publishing, I worked with an esteemed editor who told me that
my half-Latino Catholic Manny would alienate readers. She urged me to make him
white protestant. Part of his character is being a stubborn Latino, something I
captured perfectly in the series and something that is both a character
strength and flaw. I was afraid to show him for whom I thought he’d truly
represent in Santa Monica: the underpaid crew who support the entertainment industry,
go to church, but hate the industry influence.
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Character Interview Q1: How old were you when you started playing guitar? LB: I was Twelve. My mum gave me Chloe my acoustic ...
