JERR<\/a>\u00a0emailed me and asked if I’d do an article to go along with the interview they were doing.\u00a0 I said sure… if I can think of something.\u00a0 Well, I thought of something.\u00a0 I can’t remember if I was reading a book or if I saw a blog post somewhere.\u00a0 But something I saw somewhere got the idea for the article a-brewing.<\/p>\n\u00a0When Love<\/strike>Sex Isn’t Enough.<\/p>\n
Sex isn’t enough.\u00a0 Not for any book.\u00a0 Not even for erotica, I wouldn’t think.\u00a0 I don’t read erotica, but if erotica is about a personal’s sexual exploration or a personal sexual growth, there’s got to be something else besides the sex.\u00a0 A person doesn’t grow through sex alone.<\/p>\n
Likewise…two people can’t fall in love through sex alone.\u00a0 But lately I’m seeing so many stories where the plot acts as little more than to give the H&H a reason to jump into bed every five pages.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If we don’t have sex, the world will end.<\/em><\/p>\nIf we don’t have sex, the villian will kill my mother.<\/em><\/p>\nIf we don’t have sex, my boss will fire me…<\/em><\/p>\nIf we don’t have sex, the pack will think we are weak and they will kill us…<\/em><\/p>\nWhatever.\u00a0 I don’t much care for any kind of plot twist that hinges on whether or not the hero and the heroine have sex.\u00a0 The sex should be a time to further the relationship between the hero and the heroine.\u00a0 They are falling in love.\u00a0 Ideally, I do like to have the hero and the heroine already in love, or close to it, before they tumble into bed, up against a wall, on the trunk of a car…that’s my personal preference and not everybody may share it.<\/p>\n
However,\u00a0we are talking about romance here.\u00a0 There has to be love somewhere in the equation.\u00a0 Preferably the strong, undying kind of love that makes you almost wish the story wouldn’t end.<\/p>\n
Erotic romance or not, it’s still a romance.\u00a0 Take time with the sex.\u00a0 Make them love scenes.\u00a0 Not sex scenes.\u00a0 Look back at the book.\u00a0 If you lift out all of the scenes with sex in them, do you have a cohesive story?\u00a0 Or is it just nonstop shagging?<\/p>\n
If it’s nonstop shagging, or you have a 150 page story and more than half of those 150 pages are engaged in\u00a0some sort of sex act…chances are you need to develop the plot and the characters a little more.\u00a0 Develop the characters.\u00a0 What are their reasons for what they are doing?\u00a0 Who are they?\u00a0 What’s going on in their lives that makes you want to tell their story?<\/p>\n
The romance<\/strong><\/em> part is as big a part of erotic romance as the erotic <\/strong><\/em>part.\u00a0 It’s a romance.\u00a0 Not a sex how-to guide.\u00a0 Erotic romance is a trend.\u00a0 Right now, it’s a popular trend and I don’t know if it will die down any time soon since more and more readers are just now discovering it.\u00a0 Unfortunately, even with all the new readers, we’re losing some of the tried and true readers.\u00a0 Some of them are getting a little soured with the books they see lately.\u00a0 I hear it all the time, at signings, in emails, on blog posts.\u00a0 The reaction to the article I sent to JERR was just more proof.\u00a0<\/p>\nIt seems that erotic romance is losing sight of the romance. If you want to establish yourself and keep writing past the trend, you’ve got to make sure you’re telling a romance, first and foremost.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Erotic romance is hot right now.\u00a0 It sells.\u00a0 Lots of people are trying their hand at it and some of them are doing pretty well, “Sex Vs. 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