Q&A: K.M. Szpara, Author of ‘Docile’

K.M. Szpara’s debut novel Docile is a self-described “big gay book about agency and consent, with a lot of sex in it.” Your interest is piqued, right?! Set in an alternate America not so different from our own, individuals may choose to become a “Docile” — to be used for anything from manual labor to sex — in order to pay off family debt. When Elisha signs up for this role, he does not anticipate the relationship that will develop with Alex, a member of the affluent family very much involved in the development of this system of servitude.

Szpara recently took time to answer a few questions for The Nerd Daily. Read on to learn more about how he wrote this novel to fill the gap of what he was searching for, but not finding, in current science fiction, why sex is a key part of his writing, and what song has been his ringtone for a decade!

Hi Kellan! Thank you so much for taking the time to answer a few questions for The Nerd Daily. To start off, tell us a little about yourself and your debut novel, Docile!

Hello! There’s so much to come about my book, thanks to these wonderful questions, so for now I’ll say I’m a queer SFF writer who wrote a big gay book about agency and consent, with a lot of sex in it. Actually, before that, I wrote several short gay stories with a lot of sex in them, too. I live in Baltimore with an adorable dog, enjoy whiskey cocktails, and am known for having great nails. My brand is strong.

This novel has been marketed with a great quote from you which says, in part: “Docile is the book of my heart … It’s all the gay sex I read in fanfiction but could never find in the science fiction section of my bookstore. For me, Docile fills that gap — and I know it will for others.” The great Toni Morrison once said: “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it” and you are doing exactly that, which is amazing!

Could you talk a bit more about what you were searching for that you weren’t finding in other books, what you were actually seeing out there, and how that helped you frame the story in Docile to fill that gap?

Remember when Facebook was only on select college campuses and we actually spent time filling out our profiles? That Toni Morrison quote is on my page and has been for at least a decade. The first published books I read were by Michael Crichton and Anne Rice. While I loved dinosaurs and sea monsters, Rice’s Vampire Chronicles showed me there could be queer characters who loved each other—emotionally and physically—on the page. I dog-eared the heck out of those books but finding something to fill the gap was hard. When the Internet became easily accessible, I dove right into fanfic. Why not? It met all my needs. Harry and Draco were gay, there! Legolas and Aragorn, too!

For a long time I got my gay fix wherever I could, including a years-long obsession with the American version of Queer As Folk—talk about setting standards. That show had explicit queer sex in the first episode, and proceeded to feature it both as a part of the characters’ daily lives, but also as major plot and tension points. That was what I wanted to do. So, I did. Eventually, I found books like Magic’s Pawn and the Nightrunner series. I haven’t read them in years, now, and while they scratched my gay itch at the time, they didn’t go as far as Queer As Folk. That, alongside fanfiction, set the standards. I wanted SFF, wanted it gay, wanted it sexy!

Docile is a relatively long read, at 480 pages. What one thing do you want your readers to know before starting the book?

One thing?! I suppose I want people to keep in mind that, such as with real people, none of my characters are perfect. On purpose. Not even my sweet cinnamon roll of steel, Elisha. Life is complicated and so is Docile.

The tagline for Docile is “There is no consent under capitalism.” One of the great things about science fiction, to me, is the way it allows the exploration of current events and social commentary within a world that may or may not look like our own. Can you talk a bit about how this tagline captures the world that the main characters, Elisha and Alex, live in, while also capturing the climate in the U.S. currently?

When my editor, Carl Engle-Laird, proposed this tagline, I gasped. For me, it conveys that Docile examines consent on interpersonal and societal levels. Our AO3-style tags for the book include dubcon and noncon. There’s a content warning on the back cover and online copy. Most of the sex Elisha has is complicated at best. But also a lot of that is because the way their world is setup has forced him into an impossible situation. And not just him. Lots of characters work within the awful framework thrust upon them. It’s always interesting to me which characters readers are willing to forgive and which they aren’t.

In real life, most of us are just doing our best to get by, based on the life situations we’ve been handed. I am not a political expert or futurist and Docile is not set in a predicted near-future, despite being tagged as such due to genre conventions. Alex and Elisha’s world is a secondary world, a pocket universe, an alternate timelines—a world much like ours in some aspects but unlike it in others. What I hope is that readers will reflect upon their own lives and the systems in which we live, based on those of my characters. It’s easy to expect others to make good choices all the time, but not as easy to do the same yourself.

“Legatum nostrum futurum est” is a sort-of family motto of Alex’s family in the book, referencing their legacy. This legacy is a crucial part of the story, as they are creators of Dociline (a drug which blunts the mind to the experiences of servitude inherent in being a Docile) and therefore the architects of the system of Dociles in many ways. What led you to use this particular phrase in the book?

Gosh, it’s been a while since I wrote that part! I can’t remember the exact reasoning, but I did want a motto that added to the weight of generations that Alex felt. The pressure to perform in the same ways his father and grandmother did—not only to inherit the family business and carry on, but to do so in a way that aligned with the intentions of those who came before him. Even before Alex begins to question whether Dociline is bad, actually, he sees a different path forward for the drug. But those who came before him reinforce that it’s not actually his own legacy that matters but theirs. Alex does look towards the future and cares about what he makes of it, even when his vision is badly-informed.

There is no shortage of graphic, super hot sex scenes in Docile. Have you been concerned at all about how readers may respond to this, since it seems this is typically more contained to the “romance” genre? What do you want to say to readers about why these scenes are so important in your writing?

I write sex scenes because I like to. I enjoy the tension between two people navigating each other’s bodies and the emotions that are attached. I enjoy how agency and consent are inherent to sex scenes. And I enjoy that they’re hot. If we write because we love to, why not write the things we love? I knew it was going to be harder to sell a novel with multiple explicit sex scenes to a traditional “Big-5” publisher, but I didn’t care. While I love reading all types of books—mystery and horror and YA and portal fantasies and—I really only enjoy writing those in which sex and/or kink are major plot and character aspects.

And I know people like to read that stuff because they flock to fanfiction to see their favorite characters bone when they don’t in canon. So, I’m not concerned. Almost everything I’ve published—from short stories to five-hundred-page books—has explicit content, and that’s made clear in the marketing and publicity. As the old Internet adage goes, “Don’t like, don’t read.”

You also explore ideas such as consent and trust in this novel, with Elisha relegated to the role of servant to Alex’s needs, although the relationship does morph over time. Without giving spoilers, why was this sort of relationship important for you to explore? How would you respond to potential critics who may say this is an unhealthy type of relationship to present?

I know it’s an unhealthy relationship. In real life, people engage in unhealthy relationships, so why shouldn’t characters in fiction? It’s one of the ways we interrogate these relationships. A novel, where an author is pulling all the strings, is a safe space to explore hard issues like consent and agency. Without giving spoilers is always the hard part, when answering questions like these! It was incredibly satisfying to write the slow, yet radical, changes occurring in both Alex and Elisha as their relationship progressed. While much of Docile is imagined, I wanted it to feel emotionally true.

There is absolutely a need and place for healthy, flourishing relationships in SFF. They’re a refuge for many. But I prefer getting inside characters’ heads. Breaking them down and building them back up. For me, that is the refuge: knowing things can be horrific but, in the end, there is healing and hope.

If you were a Docile, would you choose to take Dociline or not? Why?

I should’ve expected to be asked this question—this is not the first time! And it’s obviously a trick. That’s the point of Dociline, isn’t it? Tempting, oh so tempting. And yet terrifying. It would depend on the length of my term and what kind of service I sought. But I’m going to be that person—sorry!—and dodge answering. I would never blame anyone for the choice they made under such awful circumstances and don’t want to imply, being the author, that there’s a right answer here.

The near-future that you’ve created in Docile is quite memorable and engaging for the reader. Do you think we may see more work from you in the future that takes place in this world, or perhaps see more of Elisha and Alex?

Haven’t those poor boys been through enough?! They deserve curtainfic through the end of their days, haha. Seriously, though, I don’t anticipate writing more in their world. The tagline, “There is no consent under capitalism,” is an assertion that the novel sets out to prove. It does not attempt to take the next steps or grapple with what “fixing things” looks like—and a large part of that is because I don’t know! Like I said earlier, I’m not a political or economic expert and I’m not a futurist. I’m just a writer who graduated with a ton of student loan debt, who’s paid thousands out of pocket for medical care and is, like many, one emergency away from The Worst, whatever that looks like. I don’t know how to fix things, only how to point out the many ways in which things are bad—and even only in a fictional world!

If I were to write more of Alex and Elisha, it would only be “fanfiction” so to say. Self-indulgent, non-canon stories or snippets featured in a newsletter or similar. But I am very busy with other writing, work, and promo, at the moment, so it’s not a priority. I hope that if readers want to imagine alternatives that they write their own fanfic! (The category is near and dear to my heart, even though I couldn’t read it depicting my own work.)

You post a good bit on social media about your writing life, which seems quite busy right now! What sort of routine or processes do you follow when writing, if any? How are you able to balance writing with your day job as a paralegal?

I am so!!! Busy!!! To be honest, I feel like I’m barely holding everything together, most days. And sometimes, I’m not. Balls drop. Juggling is hard. I put a lot of hours into my day job and am fortunate to work with a great team. I tend to get home late on weekdays, so handle the business side of writing then: answer emails, write promotional essays, do interviews and podcasts, etc. On the weekends, I treat writing like my full time job. Depending on how much work I have, I get up and go to the library or a local coffee shop and simply put in the time. Put fingers to keys. I aim for 500 words per hour—though can do more—and go for about six hours, usually. It’s a lot of work and I’m tired a lot, but I can’t imagine not writing novels.

You have also written a novelette, “Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time,” (a Hugo and Nebula nominated work, I should mention!) which is about a gay trans man who is bitten by a vampire. You have a forthcoming novel (2022) that picks up on the story of this character, as well as another novel coming out in 2021. What can you share with our readers about these works to come?

My second book is about a guy who is raised by a cult to believe he’s got magical abilities, but is liberated against his will before he can go on the quest he trained his whole life for. When he meets a kind cosplayer, they decide to go on that quest together, and find out whether monsters and magic are real. It is, per my style, gay, erotic, and full of feels!

My third book is as stated! Set eight weeks later, when Finley’s unpaid leave is over and he’s back at work. Still figuring out his new body and new life, Finn becomes torn between two worlds. His Sire’s friends offer a vampire family with a queer separatist vibe—but also hierarchical blood bonds. And his cute new doctor (boyfriend?) is offering to help him maintain the normal life he’s worked so hard to achieve. Promises blood, sex, and Daddy kink!

Let’s Get Nerdy: Behind the Writer with 9 Quick Questions

• First book that made you fall in love with reading: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
• 3 books you would take on a desert island: Carry On, Jurassic Park… and probably a book on how to survive on / escape a desert island.
• Movie that you know by heart: I rewatch the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies frequently, while doing other work. They’re my comfort watches. I’m a 90s kid; sorry to be predictable!
• Song that makes you want to get up and dance: “Telephone” by Lady Gaga and Beyoncé. It’s literally been my ringtone for a decade.
• Place that everyone should see in their lifetime: One of the tiny Greek villages on the Peloponnese. They’re all gorgeous and look even better than the postcards.
• Introvert or extrovert: Outgoing introvert!
• Coffee, tea, or neither: My Dunkin’ order is a medium iced coffee with [insert seasonal flavor here] and cream. Yummm.
• First job: Retail at a local store my parents used to own.
• Person you admire most and why: Samwise Gamgee, and isn’t it obvious why?

You can find Kellan on Twitter and Instagram, and at his website.

Will you be picking up Docile? Tell us in the comments below!