Sex is the Answer

What is the question you ask?

No question. But sex is the answer.

Take books in specific.

One imagines the writer sitting in his office; facts, pictures, clocks plastering the dark-paneled walls. Dictionary and thesaurus easy to hand, as well as a reasonably current MLA handbook.

The story is so far as follows:

Steven, our dashing hero, hears of a nefarious bank robbery plot, but the details are sketchy. The police (shock! gasp! surprise!) can't donate man power to something so iunsubstantial, but they file the report away for future reference. Steven, a budding amateur detective (of course) uses his astonishing luck and natural talent for ferreting out information goes on the hunt. While pursuing the soon-to-be criminals, he meets brilliant and sexy goddess of a newspaper reporter, Andrea. They hit it off. The chase heats up. Things are looking mighty dark for our pair....

But wait.

Something's missing.

We've read 153 pages into the book, and something is glaringly obviously absent.

Our writer realizes this. Well darn..but there's a solution! Oh yes, there is indeed! He pulls out the sleazy red flash drive he keeps for such emergencies, plugs it in. In it are a series of folders labeled with simple numbers. Our valiant author randomly selects one of the files that purports to be 509 words in length--that should fill the slot nicely. Copy, paste and save!! Success! Yet again, the emergency sex scene file (under a folder marked "steamy") has saved the book. When the writer makes it through to a little over halfway through the book, he will choose from the folder marked "scandalous" and change the names to fit.

Only when he gets to the last fifth of the book will he choose from the "sweet and sexy" file. When desperate to up the ratings, he will allow himself to select from the "shockingly racy" folder.

Somehow, somewhere, amidst the gypsy lasses buying shoddy dresses that were too small for their robust figures and sequentially bursting out of them at inopportune moments with male suitors, the sex scene was born. Born to rescue the world not from sin, but to damn an otherwise decent novel with the scene that makes you go "eh? where did that come from?" You recognize nothing but a generic scene that could have been left out entirely without affecting the novel whatsoever...except probably making it light years better.

My sister and I have come up with something we're calling "The Book Flip Test"

You take a book that looks promising. You like the look of this book. Flip it about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through. Check first at the page breaks, as steamy scenes tend to taper off about there. Then, if it passes the first flip, flip to the last 1/5 of the book. This is where the "make up" or "reunited after intense battle sequence" sex happens. If nothing appears, and you really want to be sure, flip to a little AFTER half way.

Only then will you know true success ;)