Once More, with Feeling

For me, love scenes are tough to write (gasp!) and sometimes tough to read. It seems there is, in some quarters, the feeling that erotic romance is basically stringing a succession of sex-scenes together. Yet it is, like any other genre, subject to rules. Yes, there is a heightened sexuality and frank language, but just as in any other kind of book there has to be a cohesive plot. Without one, you might as well be reading a bunch of those “true confession” letters in a men’s magazine.

And also each scene must serve a purpose—including the sex/love scenes. For me, when the love scenes are really hot you can almost bet your sweet bippy there is a new and thrilling shift in the relationship going along with it. Yes, the characters are having sex, slots and tabs as per usual, acrobatics, dominance etc. not essential (although sometimes welcome and even necessary, depending on the characters), but they’re also discovering something about themselves or their partner at the same time. While they’re doing that, the reader is learning about them too, and the heat is ramped up.

For me there has to be emotion, whether acknowledged or fought against, and relevance, or it’s just sex.

It could be the thrill of finally realizing the dream of having an encounter with the man the heroine’s been lusting after forever. Or perhaps the moment when a man looks at the person he’s having sex with and thinks, ‘Mine.’ Even the second when, scared spitless, one of the characters recognizes the very thing they didn’t want—love—has entered the equation. There are a bunch of different scenarios, instant attraction, resurgence of floundering love, angry sex, make-up sex, etc. that we use as plot devices, but the bottom line is if you don’t have emotion behind it and a reason for the sex, it just isn’t hot to me.

And let’s not forget there are scenes in books where the characters never even get undressed, much less get to actual sex, that can be hotter than the desert on a mid-summer day! The slow seduction scene that gets interrupted or is curtailed because one character knows the other isn’t ready is an example that comes to mind. Again I bet it's the heap of emotion behind it that makes the temperature rise.

So up the stakes, up the feelings behind the action, up the revelations and discoveries through the lovemaking and, in my estimation, the heat quotient rises too!

Anya

Journeys Through Seduction

Anya Richards/Anya Delvay books available from Samhain Publishing, Ellora's Cave, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Chapters Indigo.

Midnight confessions...

First confession: I don't write erotic romance.

Still with me? Good. Because I do write great stories -- they just happen to be what is, I believe, termed 'vanilla' when it comes to sex. Interesting how we classify things, isn't it?

I began my love of the romance novel many years ago. At age 13, I discovered the local drugstore sold paperback romances: Harlequin and Harlequin Presents -- the latter being the more sexy of the lines in those days. ;) I fell in love with... love. The whole idea and nuance of it all... the forbidden passion. I suppose my favorite part of it all back then was the tension -- that spark and sizzle when the characters are dancing around their attraction. It could make any young, inexperienced girl sigh.

Want to know a secret? It still does. That flirty, does-he/does-she moment. The first, accidental touch. That first time the heroine looks into his eyes. Yes, it's still my favorite part of the romance. The sexual tension. The sizzle before the actual kiss or, um, other stuff. ;)

It's also my favorite part to write, if truth be told. Sometimes, writing the 'love scene' is a chore. It can be the most difficult part of the story for me. I have to find just the right mood; just the right atmosphere (no children under foot); just the right everything.

But the tension that leads them there? For me that is oh-so-easy. Oh, yes, that's where I shine, smack-dab within the literary foreplay.

What part of the romance do you prefer? The sizzle? The cuddling? Or more?

~~Meg Allison

Indulge your senses...
http://www.megallisonauthor.com

Favorite shifters...

I love shapeshifters. Beyond the traditional werewolves, there are shifters who can take any form. There are those who are restricted to particular creatures. My daughters also enjoy shifter stories. Luckily, they've been able to find quite a few Young Adult novels that are not only well-written, but include some wonderful characters.

In honor of the Halloween season, here are some shifter stories -- mostly YA -- you might want to check out. Some you've probably read or heard of; the rest may be a pleasant new find. If you have some to add, please do!

1. Shiver (Wolves of Mercy Falls) by Maggie Stiefvater

2. Linger (Wolves of Mercy Falls) (M. Stiefvater)

3. Forever (Wolves of Mercy Falls) (M. Stiefvater)

4. Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, Book 1) - by, Cassandra Clare

5. The Hunchback Assignments - by, Arthur Slade

6. The Dark Deeps -- The Hunchback Assignments, 2 (A. Slade)

7. Empire of Ruins -- The Hunchback Assignments, 3 (A. Slade)

8. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - by, JK Rowling

On a more 'adult' note:

9. Eat Prey Love - by, Kerrelyn Sparks

~~Meg Allison
Indulge your senses...
http://www.megallisonauthor.com

The Library of Congress, signing with Nora, and DragonCon--oh my!

RavenCon isn’t the only thing on my calendar this month. Monday, April 12, barely hours after I return from Richmond, I’ll be reading at the Library of Congress in downtown Washington, D.C. The Library of Congress! You can’t see it, but I’m grinning so hard my cheeks are aching.

The reading resulted from a collaboration between the library’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Forum and Broad Universe, an international organization dedicated to exploring and promoting the work of women writers in science fiction, fantasy and horror. It will take the form of a four-person Rapid Fire Reading featuring Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Sarah Avery, fellow BtV blogger Christine Norris and me. You’ve already seen the poster I prepped when the reading was announced. Now you can read the bios, too, in the hand-out I’ll be using as our program.

But that’s not the only reason I may expire of excitement. I’ve been added to the roster of major authors (like Charlaine Harris!) signing with Nora Roberts at Turn the Page Bookstore Café in Boonsboro, Maryland, on Friday, April 16. My name and web site link seem to wander around the page, but the confirmation of my presence is right there at the bottom of the page: the buy link for Fantasy Art Templates.

I signed With Nine You Get Vanyr at the Turn the Page spring mega-signing in 2007. Nora and the top names sell hundreds of books, and even small fry like me sell in the dozens. This time, there are some new rules. For example, the writers can only sign books purchased at the event. Trust me, that’s a relief. Yes, you sign that much.

Finally, it’s official. I’m on the guest list at DragonCon. Atlanta, here I come. I can’t wait.

Back from Vacation

Okay, before I write my post I'd just like to note that I'm excited to see that my cat-shifter romance, Puma, is now on sale in paperback on Amazon! Though it's not officially on sale until August 4. Anne Cain did the lovely lovely cover.

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I'm back from vacation and brain dead. There's also a very cute cat stalking the clover in our front yard. These two sentences are not much related.

I actually find it harder to be online during the summer, there are so many distractions! I'm curious if internet use decreases in July and August or not. Or if it's just me. September is the month to hunker down again and focus on the jobs, and I tend to be more online then. (And read less.)

So I did some reading on vacation and that was a lot of fun. Among the books I read were a selkie romance (Sea Lord by Virginia Kantra), historical fiction about slavery (The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, published as Someone Knows My Name outside of Canada), alternate history with dragons in the Napoleonic wars (Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik), fantasy of manners (The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner) and a historical romance (Broken Wing by Julia James).

Often I'll read romance only, but then I'll suddenly want to break out of that reading pattern and pick up quite different sorts of books. What have you been reading this summer?

January

In some ways, January and September are my favorite months. I guess I like beginnings, or I like the end of vacations. Even if I like vacations too!

But routine is a friend to me, and it's great being back in the swing of writing again. I finished up a project in the first week of January—not that there won't be edits. And I've got two new ideas running around in my head. So this week I want to write partials. Which are, obviously, beginnings.

One is easier than the other. It's set in the same world I've been writing in for a while, with shapeshifters (cats and wolves) as well as the occasional psychic. I'll read up a bit more on cats, because I like doing things like that. But most of the work is in the story itself.

The second project is in a different place and has different research needs. It makes me excited, to read about history and lighthouses and seals and the ocean and…well you get the idea. But that takes times, of which I never seem to have enough. But I'm still going get a partial out of this. I'd hate for the idea to fade away. This way, if I write my partial, then if I have to leave the idea alone for months (because of the other project), I should be able to find my way back to writing the entire thing.

Anyway, who else has writing projects for 2009? Or reading projects? I've signed on for a reading challenge which I hope I can keep up with. First assignment is reading a category, so I'm going to look for an old Silhouette Intimate Moments (my favorite and, sadly, now-defunct line) and read that. In fact I better pick it up soon!

The Comfort of the Familiar -- Connected Stories and Sequels

Series and connected works have been with us almost as long as stories have been with us. From Chaucer's Canterbury Tales to Nancy Drew, from various yarns that take place in the realm of King Arthur to any number of running series being published today, both authors and readers alike enjoy revisiting their fictional creations and worlds. Sometimes when you scan the shelves, it can feel like the true stand-alone novel is an exotic creature, shy, elusive and rarely spotted in the wild. Granted, if you venture outside the genre fiction area into literary fiction, you'll encounter more of these solitary beasts, but even in the dusty halls of lit fic you'll find books that recall one another. Alice Walker's novel The Secret of Joy chronicled the lives of some of the descendents of The Color Purple, as a more famous example, and then there are Updike with his rabbits and Roth and his Zuckerman novels. Even when novels aren't strictly connected, many authors re-use familiar or favorite settings, like Anne Tyler and Baltimore, Maryland, or Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha County.

Wikipedia claims these types of tale are particularly popular in science fiction and fantasy novels "because of the artistic importance of complex ideas and the commercial importance of brand names." I've heard writers say they did so much work developing a speculative setting that they hate to discard it after one book. Readers, too, find comfort in the familiar settings and characters while indulging in the human need to know "and then what happened?".

There are many different connections that can exist within the body of an author's work. The first type would be trilogies or multi-ogies (!) like the Lord of the Rings or the Wheel of Time, where none of the books stand alone but create a massive story involving many characters and plots headed towards a single conclusion. The books themselves may not contain set or even partial dénouements but instead end on cliffhangers or situations where the narrative is obviously "to be continued".

I see the second type as series like Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden novels, where the narratives in each book are consecutive but involve the same set of characters. In most cases, the book is narrated by the same individual. Each novel stands alone, though in most cases a reader's enjoyment can be enhanced if he or she begins at the beginning.

There is a subset of this type currently very popular in urban fantasy. Let's call it 2B. Each novel set in the specific universe is part of a greater narrative, but unlike novels in type 1, the stories in the books have their own arcs -- satisfying beginnings, middles and ends. Yet while you read the book you are conscious of the fact there is a greater thread that will be continued in the next story and a seemingly premeditated conclusion the author is headed towards--eventually. A great example would be Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson novels.

Third type. More complicated are connected works like Sherrilyn Kenyon's various Hunter tales. These books are set ostensibly in the same universe, so to speak, and contain references to and characters from other novels. If there are any speculative elements, they remain consistent from book to book. However, each book tells the story of a unique character or couple while drawing upon and adding to the worldbuilding and history of the "universe" as a whole. Series of this ilk can be as intertwined as Kenyon or Ward's urban fantasy romances (type 3A) or as discrete as Susan Grant's science fiction romances (type 3B).

Adding to the jumble are shared worlds, type four, where different authors put their heads together and write stories either set in the same universe or that continue one another's overarching plot threads. Examples I can think of right off the top of my head of straight shared world would be the Sanctuary stories from the fantasy genre (Type 4A), and of overarching plot would be Dorchester's Crimson City and 2176 novels (Type 4B). Some of the authors here at Beyond the Veil created an anthology that's a mishmash of the two called DunVegas, and it's free if you like Las Vegas, paranormal romances, and lots of hot sex! I'd say it falls more under 4A than 4B, however.

I myself just got a contract from Samhain for a novella entitled "Liam's Gold" set in the same world as my upcoming novel "Survival of the Fairest". While my novel, due out in July, takes on fairies, magic and flesh-eating gnomes from the "Realm" of my imagination, the novella's subject is a leprechaun who also originates from the Realm but dwells in humanspace for the duration of the story. These works would fall under the 3B category.

To writers -- what stories have you written that would fall under one of these categories? Any other categories to add? And to readers (which is all of us) -- tell us why you love connected stories!

Jody W.
A SPELL FOR SUSANNAH--Available now from Samhain Publishing
http://www.jodywallace.com/ * http://meankittybox.blogspot.com/

You Say You Want a Resolution..

I hope Paul, John, Ringo and George forgive me for paraphrasing their song for my title, but I was desperate. The New Year is here and everyone is throwing the R word around. I'm talking about New Year Resolutions, of course. Millions of people make them on the 1st, break them by the end of the month, or in some cases, by the 3rd or 4th of January. Why? Because they set their expectations too high.
*****
Resolution 1: I'm quitting a bad habit! (eg. smoking, drinking etc)

While this is a wonderful thing to attempt and I wish everyone luck in trying it, doing it when you're about to receive all those Christmas credit card bills is not a good idea. Here are some overheard convos, "Yes, Capital Con, can you please tell me why I could either buy a mid-sized Caribbean Island or send you my minimal monthly payment? Oh yeah? Well, what's in your wallet? What do you mean you only use cash? I can see why!" ...or... "No wonder your mother loves you best, you bought her a hot tub!" ...or my personal favorite made popular by my husband.... "Gurgle, gurgle thud!" Those alone will make you want to crawl into the nearest bottle, pack of ciggies, bag of chips or hey, just jump into a combo of the three and have a oinkfest to end all oinkfests.

Which brings me to...

Resolution 2: I'm going on a diet!

Come on people, how can you expect to keep this one with all those left over Christmas goodies in the house? Better to say; I'll go on a diet in the late Spring. This way all the Valentine and Easter candy will be gone too. This is what I call the Have Your Candy and Eat It Too plan.

Resolution 3: I'm going start working out every single day!

Ack! Okay, it's healthy, at least, it seems to be, but, I'm a little suspicious of the terminology involved. The word aerobic sounds like a strange disease passed through the air. Think about it, when those(strangely happy) people get hot their sweat turns to steam and pervades the air, soaking into your skin and going into your lungs. Nasty! Before you know it, you too are bouncing around in brightly colored, unflattering, tight fitting clothing that you wouldn't otherwise be caught dead in and your face is stuck in that freaky rictus smile too! It's the 80's revisited. Believe me, once was plenty.

And then, there's the word exercise which sounds and looks a lot like the word exorcise. Since that last word pertains to demons, (my own skewed) logic dictates that both do.

My theory is supported by the fact that both cause:

1. Unnatural contortions of the body and face
2. Pain filled grunts, screams, groans emanating from the victims
3. Crying and/or begging for mercy from said victim's deity of choice.

I could go on but I think I've proved my point and my psychosis with this one ;)

Resolution 4: I'm getting a new and better job!

Trying to do this right after the Christmas buying binge is over isn't going to be easy. But, doing so right at the beginning of the year will make next year's tax forms neat and tidy. Ooops, did I say the T-word too early? I'm sorry! That's another blog, which involves procrastination, number crunching and the perils of lying to the scariest governmental organization in the universe(and beyond). Death and taxes are both inevitable. Wait a mo! On second thought, you could get a job at one of those tax places that pop up overnight. Go You!

Resolution 5: I'm going to find the perfect girlfriend/boyfriend!

There's no such thing as perfect, which would be why I write and why I read romance novels. Those alpha dudes have perfect aim.. when putting their socks in the hamper. *grins* Of course, the best and easiest resolution anyone could make would be to read more books. Whether it be romances or any kind. Books can make all your resolutions much more attainable too. And no, I'm not talking about those self help ones, not that there's anything wrong with them.

You don't believe me do you? I'll illustrate how reading can help with each of the resolutions above.

Res 1. Get caught up in a great book and you'll forget to smoke or drink or talk too much. That helps kick that bad habit right there.

Res 2. Reading makes you thinner. Sure it can, if you spend your lunch money on books...again *coughs*

Res 3. Getting lost in a good story can make even me, a total exercise-phobe forget that I'm on the terrible treadmill, evil eliptical machine or satanic stationary bike for half hour segments at a time.

Res 4. Getting caught reading at work can cause you to get fired, thereby making it so that you have to find a new job to support your book addiction.

Res 5. Reading can help you at least look smart. But there's the very real fact that it does enrich your vocabulary not to mention help you learn new skills. What genre you choose will of course determine the type of skills you acquire. *wiggles brows* But remember, knowledge is power and power is sexy. Meowrr!


Happy New Year and Happy Reading!
Jenna Leigh