Thursday, September 27, 2012

Erotica, Romance, and Fantasy (ramblings)

Sometimes I wonder about the genre I write in.  I love writing about sex, but oftentimes it is just a small part of a bigger story, not the focus of it.  My favorite part of writing is creating characters and watching them react to the situation I put them in.  "Brian is Gay (and so am I)" is not really erotica.  Yes, there is a sex scene in it, but the story is simply about a man fighting with accepting his own sexuality.  I feel like I'm lying a little bit to even label it as erotica, but it does feature graphic sex, and it is kinda hot.  "Cherry Bomb" is clearly romance with graphic sex.  Over all it is very basic, Harlequin-esque.  "Shoes" is straight up erotica, and so is "In the Dark" and "When Life is Interesting." They are very short stories.  The main focus is on the sex and they are framed by enough plot to make you interested in the characters, but it doesn't tell a full story and the entire point is for the characters to have sex.

I don't actually write a lot of stories that are just about the sex.  I always want more.  Yet I hate to label myself as a romance writer.  I understand that it is an unfair stigma, but the truth of the matter is that there are very few authors who write romance that I actually like.  I find romances formulaic, dorky, and many are badly written (to be fair, I have a very low tolerance for bad writing).  At the same time when reading other genres I crave romance.  (In real-life I am very practical and not at all romantic.)  I also crave sex, and if I'm lucky enough to get one, I rarely get both.  I probably read more fanfic than anything else because it gives me the romance and sex within the excellent stories that I love.  Also everything is at least 20% gayer, which is also fun.

I love fantasy and science fiction and mysteries, but they all need more sex and more romance.  So I write fairy tales with sex in them (you can expect some of those in November) and lots of paranormal romance.  I don't write a lot of high fantasy, but I am working on a few steam-punk projects with sex and romance and gay characters.  Mysteries are a big challenge for me.  I'm not very good at them.  But maybe one day.

What's your favorite genre?

2 comments:

  1. I feel you on being skittish with the romance writer label. I run from anything formulaic in my personal and professional life, so I definitely don't want to read: insert boy, insert boy, insert problem.

    I love fantasy, but I think most fantasy just refuses to deal with sex and romance in an appealing way. So I guess that's why I've rolled up my sleeves and chose to tackle it myself.

    And gayer is always fun.

    -Ben

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    1. Oh, also, nice post. I've been having very similar sentiments, and it's nice to see them written about frankly.

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