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I began my writing career pretty much writing whatever I
wanted. My first manuscript was about the romance between an injured football
player and his physical therapist, written back when sports heroes were anathema
to publishers. The sex was racy and the acts clearly stated without any
throbbing members or heaving bosoms, but less frequent than most current
steamy offerings. Walk Like A Man has always been popular,
and is available as part of an anthology, Falling
in Love (http://tinyurl.com/qdpozkj )
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My three subsequent manuscripts were in the same vein, with
sex included as a part of a normal relationship.
Then I was signed to Silhouette Romance, where rules
concerning sex were strict. No sex without marriage and I had to be careful
about how that sex was described. Still, I got away with a lot because I got
the characters married at the midpoint of the book, and by the fourth and last
book I wrote for SilRom the sex was fairly graphic. No cocks and cunts, but
female cores and male rods joining--that sort of thing.
Then SilRom folded and I was orphaned, but free to write
what I wanted. I didn't know quite what to do with myself, and when a couple of
friends confessed that they'd been doing well writing for the online erotica
market, I thought, "Why not?"
So I sexed up an otherwise fairly staid holiday story and
sold it to Ellora's Cave, then a leading purveyor of online erotic romance.
While EC didn't buy everything I wrote, there were a plethora of other online
erotic romance publishers who took what EC didn't like.
However, the difficulty I faced was the other side of the
coin from Silhouette Romance. Rather than avoid sex, I had to shoehorn it in
constantly to satisfy the appetites of either my readers or my
editors--couldn't figure out which and it really didn't matter.
I found a variety of ways to do this given that I don't like
to confuse heroine and ho. In my books sex occurs in the course of a naturally
unfolding relationship, just like it does in most people's lives (including
mine) unless they're randy teens figuring out how to do it or twenty-nothing
males with weak egos, seeking to scratch another notch onto their bedpost to
compensate for some other failing.
The easiest technique is to start in the middle of the
relationship, as I did with Gypsy Witch, included in the Naughty Literati's latest box set, Naughty Haunts. Here's the first paragraph:
Ben propped himself up on his elbows to better see the
naked woman beneath him. Sheened with sweat, Elena’s lush curves glowed in the
reddish half-light of her bedroom, curtained in exotically patterned swaths of
gauze and silk. A curl of smoke from a lit incense stick scented the air with
sandalwood. Otherworldly New Age music flowed out of a boombox in the corner,
irritating the hell out of him.
This is one of the better first paragraphs I've written. Not
only does the story start with a bang, but there's a fair amount of characterization
and conflict indicated. Setting is described as well.
Erotica is a great thing. Hey--there's a need for stroke
books. However, as an author, I really do prefer to write romance that includes
erotic content rather than erotica. Erotica is just less satisfying to me in
terms of writing craft. There's something unnatural about a story that's just
sex sex sex sex sex sex. Unless you're a prostitute, our lives are more full
and varied. It's more interesting to write about a variety of human experiences
rather than just one.
