7. #2
We float around for a while before Thalia decides she’s had enough of the waterfall and it’s time to see some monkeys.
We didn’t bring a towel so we have to wait until we drip dry to put our clothes back on.
I stand with my hands on my hips, which if you don’t know is called arms akimbo, and survey the scene around me.
The sun is intense but the tree cover above is so dense we’re protected from the worst of it.
Not from the gnats though, which have found us again.
We put our clothes back on and walk back down.
I grab the plastic cup with the cigarette butt, and a couple of water bottles I find along the trail on the way.
One is so old it’s turned black and gone brittle.
I put all the junk in the trash cans by the bikes and feel satisfied that I’m leaving the forest better than I found it.
Monkey Hill is another twenty minutes or so away.
We pass hillsides that have been bulldozed to make room for rubber tree plantations and condos, which sucks.
But there are still patches of wild forest too, places where the treeline is still dense.
The scenery gets more urban as we approach Phuket Town.
It used to be the biggest settlement on the island and it’s still the place to go for great cafes and restaurants that have been converted from these old shophouses with Chinese and Portuguese influences—shuttered windows painted in pastels, decorative ironwork, the kind of street that took a hundred years to look exactly this good.
We stop for ice cream at this Japanese ice cream parlor in Phuket Town called WA! They do this thing where they put noodles made from matcha on the ice cream. It’s called hiyamen or something like that. We take two.
The interior is Japanese-inspired, low tables and cushions on the floor, the kind of place designed for small people. A handwritten menu board on the wall. Paper lanterns. I have to fold my legs in an uncomfortable configuration to make it work. Thalia does it without thinking.
“Why is matcha suddenly everywhere?” I ask. “It’s the biggest trend all of a sudden.”
She twirls one of the green noodles around her spoon like she’s eating spaghetti and considers this seriously.
“It’s good, probably really healthy—I mean, it’s green right? It has to be good for you. Green things always are.” She pauses. “What? What are you smiling at?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I was just thinking of a line I wrote. I was comparing this girl’s breasts to ceremonial-grade matcha.”
“Sexy,” she says. “Is this a goblin girl?”
“Yep,” I say. “The latest girl in the group. Number sweet sixteen.”
“So every book there’s another girl, right? The guy collects them like they’re Pokemon?”
“Sort of,” I say. “But the point is that each one is special.”
“How? How can one man love sixteen girls, goblins or no?”
I shrug.
“It’s a fantasy,” I say. “You either buy it or not.”
“But how do you make each girl unique? How do you get the reader to fall in love with her every time?”
I scoop the matcha ice cream into my mouth and wait until I’ve swallowed before answering. It’s cold enough that it takes a second.
“That’s the challenge,” I say. “Sometimes you think of someone specific and give her that person’s characteristics.
Other times their personalities emerge from the way they play off each other and interact.
They can shift and change from book to book according to the situation.
The key is to keep them recognizable and important.
Readers are usually pretty forgiving about predictable plot conventions, but they’ll put the book down if they don’t believe the girls are real and the MMC really cares about them. ”
“MMC?”
“Male main character,” I explain. “The girls are all LIs, or love interests.”
She smiles and picks at the matcha noodles on her ice cream, still trying to figure out the best approach to them.
“There’s all this terminology,” she says. “I’m getting an education I never expected about this. So, why do guys like this? Is it just a power fantasy?”
“That’s part of it, but I think there’s really something else going on,” I say. “Most books are written for women. You look at publishing these days and there’s just no question that it skews heavily female.”
“We read more books,” she says. “Way more than guys.”
“That’s true, but it creates this cycle where the books that come out are by women authors written for women readers. There’s not really a lot out there for guys. Men want something to read that will give them what they want and not judge them for it.”
“And what they want is sex, right? With lots of girls?”
“Sure,” I say. “But the books that are nothing but erotica don’t really sell that well. It’s not really about sex at its core. That has to be there, but it’s about something else.”
I stop to take another bite, using the pause to find what I actually mean.
“I think what readers really want is to spend time with women. Lots of women. Whether it’s fantasy or action adventure, these are stories where women are the whole point.
Getting to spend time with lots of different kinds of women with no social friction, no stress, no BS.
That’s what it’s all about. I mean, that’s what I think it is.
That’s what I like about writing them. Somebody else might have a different opinion. ”
“Do you ever write from personal experience?” she asks, with a grin.
I know there’s more to this than simple curiosity.
“Of course,” I say. “The girls in this series are partially inspired by this group of sixteen women I used to date. Of course, they weren’t green.”
“Come on,” she says. “You know I’m talking about Olavia.”
“Olavia?”
“They’re a sexy pair of girls whose names are Olivia and Ava. Their power couple name would be Olavia. This is just obvious. It has to be, right?”
“I never called them that,” I say. “But now that you mention it, I can see how it could catch on.”
“So?”
“Actually, I try not to think of them that way,” I say. “The whole point is that it’s fantasy. When it’s working, it helps you escape the things you would rather not spend your time thinking about.”
“Sorry,” she says. “I wasn’t trying to be a mood killer.”
“It’s fine. You’re not really. I understand why you made the connection.”
I smile and take another bite of my rapidly-melting ice cream. The little paper cup is already sweating through the napkin.
“Olavia. How did I not think of that?”
“Yeah, how could you not have? I mean, you’re a writer, aren’t you?”
“I guess I didn’t really view them as a unit,” I say. “They were so wildly different in certain ways. And still are, I guess. They aren’t dead.”
I’m just dead to them.
“I think we need a new subject,” she says.
“Alright,” I say. “Let’s talk about your romantic history.”