August 16, 2006
10:59 pm • Filed under: Uncategorized
In my blog hopping travels I came across Alison Kent’s blog, where she was asking fellow writers to read and blog about a chapter from her book coming out, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing Erotic Romance.
I decided to jump on that opportunity and Chapter 12 - Sex Isn’t Always About Love, arrived in the mail on Monday. I’m going to blog about it for the next few days, so I hope you tune in because the chapter was an easy and interesting read. I’m definitely going to buy this book. As I read it a lightbulb went on over my head and caused me to add something to my current wip. See? One chapter and it already helped me! Guess I’m a complete idiot. LOL
Here are the main topics:
- Connecting physical and emotional pleasure
- Using sex as a plot device in an erotic romance
- Discovering the most intense and intimate reassurance of life
- Curing a character’s ills
As Kent points out from the get-go, authors of erotic romance normally write the opposite of a “traditional” romance - the love grows from a sexual relationship instead of sex coming after love between the hero and heroine. So true.
Sex feels good and our characters wanna do it, a lot of the time with no strings attached. Of course, this is never the case, because after all, it’s about the romance. There are all kinds of strings attached, but our silly characters just don’t realize it yet, until after the fact.
So what kinds of realistic activities can our characters participate in that seem simple on the surface, but turn into something much more complicated? Here are some examples:
- The good ol’ One Night Stand: A standard, one I’ve used more than a few times. But come on, you can’t miss with this one.
- The “Bed Buddy”: You know, the couple that get together when nothing else is going on and they want to feel connected to someone, enjoy a little free and easy sex. Then one of them realizes they want more than just occasional sex, which really throws a kink in the term “bed buddy.” Damn emotions. LOL
- The Casual Affair: Similar to the Bed Buddy, but with a little more thrown in. The heroine has no time for a romantic relationship, she just wants someone she can rely on when she needs a date to a company function, or wants to go out to dinner, and maybe a little sex thrown in to sweeten the deal. Then she starts to fall in love with Mr. Casual. Uh oh.
And I haven’t even gotten into the meat of this chapter! Check back, I’m blogging next about the emotions involved in sex that don’t include love. Yeah, baby.
Jodie says:
wow! that’s great work.
Loribelle Hunt says:
Sounds like a cool back! I’ll have to check back for more reports lol.
Devon Ellington says:
Good points.
Actually, I hopped over here because of yesterday’s BIAW post about being stuck.
First, I wish you rapid unstuckness.
Second, sometimes it helps me to do the part in which I’m stuck in a different point of view, even for just a page, to get a different perspective.
Best wishes!
Cora Zane says:
Hey! This is really, really interesting! I’ve delved further and further into erotic romance and I can see how this stuff can come in handy. I’m going to have to look for this book.
Kelley says:
This is really cool; very interesting.
Sage Burnett says:
Thanks, Karen, for sharing that info for us erotic romance writers. Looks like a great book.
Sarah L. Castleberry says:
Great article, Karen! Thanks for sharing!
Sarah L. Castleberry says:
I also wanted to say, it’s a really cool idea to explore erotica as it’s own genre, instead of a “subset” of traditional romance…since the rules are so different and the expectations are different.
Stacy Dawn says:
Wow, that sounds like a cool book!